The stick came down. The blow wasn't the best, and certainly wouldn't have killed him. Still, it was a good try and Kemir smiled as he caught the stick and held on to it. He gave the stick a good tug, and then when the boy pulled back, he let go. The boy tumbled over backwards. Kemir jumped on him, making sure he had no chance to get up.

'I don't want to fight with you, lad. What's your name?'

The boy screamed something incoherent and spat at him.

'I'm not going to hurt you.' Carefully he let the boy go. The boy jumped to his feet, grabbed his stick and backed away. Then he came at Kemir, who caught the first couple of blows on his forearms, wincing at the pain from the burns still healing under his sleeves. On the third one, he ducked aside and kicked the boy's legs out from under him.

'I could show you how to fight, if you like.'

The boy screamed again, turned and ran. When he saw Kemir wasn't following, he stopped long enough to grab a piece of meat and then vanished into the trees. Kemir shrugged and settled with his back to the fire to watch.

'I was older than you when the riders came,' he called out. 'Not by many years, but enough to make a difference. You listen to this, boy! We were on the edge of a lake. Just like this. We even had a few animals. We thought the dragon-riders would never find us. Even if they did, we thought they'd leave us alone. Just like this place here.

'Are you still there, boy? Are you listening?' He raised his voice, then slumped back to the ground and shook his head and his voice dropped. No. Of course he wasn't. There wasn't anyone here to listen to him at all. Except the stars. There were always stars, or else the moon or sometimes some clouds when he needed an ear. 'We all ran into the trees, when the dragons came. They filled the ground we'd cleared by the edge of the lake. They caught a few of us, but they didn't burn anything or kill anyone. They had riders who said that we belonged to the King of the Crags. That we had to give them everything they asked for as a tribute. As payment for their protection. They wanted what they always want. Men to sell as slaves and women for ... Well, you'll know all about that in time. The older men decided we'd give them what they wanted. We should have fought, that's what I said. I wasn't the only one either, but what did I know? I was barely a man, like you, all full of piss and vinegar. Anyway, you've seen one. Think about it, boy. How do you fight a dragon?'

He sighed. He didn't know who he was talking to. The trees and the water. The dead, perhaps. Certainly not the boy in the woods, who was surely long gone. 'A few of us left then. Just upped and went. The clever ones. They were gone whe'n the dragons came back a few days later, with their wooden slave cages. We gave up our own people. There were boys and girls, tied up by their own weeping mothers and fathers to be sold to the dragon-riders. That's how it was, boy. There were fights. People killed by their own families. We never had that before. They chose us by lots. Ten young men and ten girls between the ages of ten and sixteen. I was one of the ones who should have gone. I ran away and hid for days and they didn't find me. Someone else went in my place. I knew him. Everyone knew everyone. He was family, of a sort. A friend. I hated everyone. I wasn't alone. People who lost their sons and daughters and brothers and sisters held grudges against those who didn't. The boy who was taken because I'd hidden had a brother. He came for me with a knife. I laid him out with a stick. I didn't want to kill him, but he wouldn't stop. He came after me again and again. I think he wanted me to kill him.' Kemir sniffed and blinked and was surprised to find tears in his eyes. He wasn't talking to anyone except himself now. He could barely see the trees any more. All he could see was the memory, the burning. His voice broke to a whisper. 'Took me a long time before I understood how he must have felt. Took a dragon to teach me that.

'The riders took our hearts, all of them. We were empty shells. No one laughed any more.' He blinked. 'And then they came back for the last time. Me and Sollos were on the other side of the lake when they came. By the time we got back, it was all gone. Nothing but ash. They didn't take slaves this time. They didn't take anything. After they'd burned it all, they landed. Anyone they hadn't killed with fire they put to the sword. They weren't the same riders as had come before. I could see that by their dragons. Different, you see. And you know what, boy? For all the oaths I swore that day, maybe those riders were the merciful ones. They put us out of our misery.' He gave a bitter laugh. 'That was Prince Valmeyan.

He was a king by the time I knew his name. I swore I'd destroy him for what he'd done. Him and every one of his riders. I never had any idea how, but I want to see him burn. I still do. Slowly, as he looks out over the ashes of everything he loves. See, boy, I know how you feel. Sollos and I, we learned to be soldiers so we could fight. I was always good with a bow. We set about killing riders. Murdered a couple and then we had to run to the furthest corner of the realms. Out to the moors in the east. After that we took work as we could get it. Killing work, if you get my drift. It was easier that way but I'm glad it's stopped. I never liked it. Not the killing, you understand. That was fine. It was the taking orders from them.'

Kemir sniffed. He shifted, settling himself. The boy hadn't come back. He was glad of that. There were still tears on his cheeks when there shouldn't have been. Best the boy didn't see that. was all so long ago.

'Sollos is gone now,' he whispered to the air, and suddenly he didn't care whether the boy came back or not.

Let him crack my skull while I'm sleeping. Then Snow can eat me. Most likely we'd both be better off. He lay down. I know what you're thinking, boy, because I thought it too. And I know where that took me, and I know exactly what it's like to be me, and it's really not worth it. That's what I'm trying to tell you, boy. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Be someone else. Let it go. He fell asleep, but he didn't sleep well. His dreams were old and troubled.

After you burned a man's home to charcoal and his family to ash, you could hardly bring them back and pretend it never happened. Let it go? He didn't even know how to begin. You couldn't really even say sorry. By then that was just was an insult.

26

 

Jeiros

 

 

Jeiros, acting grand master, leaned back in his chair and sighed. On his desk he had six letters. The ink was still fresh and drying. Three letters were to three sisters, all saying the same thing: You are now a queen. The other three were to their eyrie-masters, carrying the necessary instructions. Instructions to pass on the mysteries that only kings and queens were permitted to know. And a warning about one or two other things.

'I don't know how you manage,' he said. The other alchemist in the room, who'd written the letters to the eyrie-masters, was Vioros. As Zafir's senior alchemist, he was the closest thing Jeiros had to a deputy. At least, he was the closest thing that could be found at midday in the approximate vicinity of the Adamantine Palace when one king, one queen and one prince had all wound up dead on the same day. 'Bellepheros once wrote two of these in one month, and we never heard the end of it. But three! And in a day! How have you survived such a mistress?'

Vioros stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged. 'Her mother was never any trouble to us and nor has Zafir been, since she took the crown. And not all of these letters are actually necessary, Jeiros. Jehal isn't dead yet.'

'Yet being the significant word.' Jeiros carefully took a handful of down and sprinkled it over the drying ink. 'I'll be surprised if he lasts the night. And if he does, he won't last the week. The wound has gone bad and he's lost so much blood. That's that, I'm afraid. The end of him. Nothing any of us can do.' Jeiros yawned. 'If he's strong then he'll linger a while. But you're right: strictly, he's not actually dead yet. The speaker's choices are to let him waste away in stinking rotting agony for a few days or put him out of his misery. The latter would be the merciful thing to do, but I suppose she might baulk at that under the circumstances. Besides, I'm not sure she's one for mercy, is she?'

Vioros glanced sharply up. 'Or she could find herself a blood-mage.'

'Or that.' For a few moments neither of them said anything, as though Vioros had suddenly let a bad smell into the room and they were both waiting for the air to clear.

'I don't know why Zafir has me trying to keep him alive anyway,' muttered Jeiros at last. 'Why bother to go to all that trouble and then cut off his head anyway?'

'Oh, I don't think she wants him dead.'

Jeiros sighed again and shook his head. 'Madness. I didn't want to be grand master.' 'You're not.'

'Oh, come on! Bellepheros disappeared almost half a year ago. If he's not dead, he's certainly not coming back!' Jeiros rubbed his eyes and waved at the letters. 'I was much happier at the redoubt. And Bellepheros never had to deal with anything like this. A quarter of the Order dead at the hands of a rogue dragon; all our stocks wiped out; eyries across the realms running short. Do you realise that King Narghon is down to two weeks' supply?'

'We're down to three weeks ourselves.'

'I know! Can you imagine?' Jeiros wrung his hands and shook his head. 'Can you simply imagine what would happen if even one eyrie ran out? An entire eyrie. We'd have to poison them all! And then the consequences ...'

'I'm trying not to think about it. These Red Riders—'

'If you think that's bad, imagine us at war! All our supplies pass through King Valgar's realm.' He checked himself. 'Queen Almiri's realm, I mean. Now.'

'That will be Zafir's cause for war, when it comes. I'll make you a wager on that if you like.'

'Make me a wager on how long it will be before Almiri turns on the Order and starts trying to starve Zafir's eyries. The Red Riders have already started.' He shook his head again. 'Madness, all of it.'

'She'll starve everyone else as well. Even herself.'

Jeiros got up and walked to the window. Outside, the sun was close to the horizon. They've probably finished building the cages now. Shezira and Valgar will be hanging outside the gates. What's left of them.

'I don't think she's going to have much of a choice. Or she may not care. If she's got half her mother's stubbornness ... Have you met her?'

'No.'

'Pity.' He was pacing back and forth now, unable to contain the nervous energy crackling through his limbs. 'I can't take any chances, Vioros, and neither can you. If the potions run out among the Adamantine eyries, who do you serve? Zafir or the Order?'

'I serve the Order.'

'Of course you do, of course you do. If the speaker goes to war, we shall stop supplying and stockpile at the redoubt instead. We simply can't afford to lose any more. I shall tell the speaker. I'll have to tell the other master alchemists too. Warn them. I suppose I'll have to tell all the eyrie-masters that they might have to fly to Valeford and pick up their potions from there. Make sure your alchemists are ready to do what needs to be done if it comes to the worst. Make sure they've got plenty of what they'll need. Ancestors! I know we've put down dragons before, but has anyone ever put down an entire eyrie of them? I don't think they have! How soon could you be prepared here? I mean if you had to be? If it had to be done?'

'A matter of days.'

'You realise that everyone will try to stop you. You won't only have the speaker's riders and servants and probably half the Scales against you, you'll have the Adamantine Guard to contend with as well.'

'They rarely pay much attention.'

'So be it. I shall come for an inspection of the Adamantine eyrie before the week is out. Now to warn the others.' Vioros groaned. 'More letters?' 'More letters.'

Jeiros was halfway through writing the first when a violent knocking shook the door. He jumped, startled by the sudden sound. He looked at the letter. His hand had twitched in the middle of a stroke and the word was ruined. He'd have to start again.

'Who is it and what do you want?' he snapped. No one ought to be banging on his door. The juniors in the order were permitted a timid knock and the speaker wouldn't bother; she'd simply barge in.

The banging came again. With a growl of irritation, Jeiros got up. He opened the door.

'Tassan.' He blinked, taken aback. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the Night Watchman here. Usually they avoided each other, following some ancient unwritten law that the Order and Adamantine Men simply didn't get along.

Apart from a few nights ago. But then these weren't usual times.

'Acting Grand Master.' Vale Tassan bowed politely. He got my title right, Jeiros noticed. A little too much accent on the Acting though.

'We are extremely busy, thanks largely to you, so I would appreciate it if you were brief.' Jeiros didn't move aside. He certainly didn't want the Night Watchman seeing the letters on the desk.

'I have two things on my mind.' Vale stepped forward. Jeiros still didn't move. The Night Watchman cocked his head. 'May I come in or shall we discuss my business out here where anyone might overhear us. Both my matters are somewhat sensitive.'

Jeiros glanced over his shoulder. Vioros had already cleared the desk. With a sharp nod, Jeiros moved aside.

'I shan't ask what you were writing,' said Vale. 'I'm sure it's not my business.'

'We've been writing all day, Night Watchman. You made three new queens today.'

Tassan smiled. 'Two. Jehal's not dead yet.'

'That is merely a matter of time, Night Watchman.'

'I am not so sure of that.' Vale sat down in the chair Vioros had vacated. Somehow that only emphasised how massive the man was. He could probably rip me apart with his bare hands.

'Well I am quite sure,' snapped Jeiros. Something about the Adamantine Man was rubbing him the wrong way. Maybe I'm just tired. Or maybe he should have done something weeks ago. Or maybe I simply blame him for wielding the sword. He said it himself: 'The Guard obeys orders. From birth to death. Nothing more, nothing less.' Is that really all he is?

'I'm sure you know best.' Said in the tone of voice of someone quite sure that Jeiros didn't know best.

'Night Watchman, we have a very great deal to do thanks to your work today, so I would appreciate it if you got to the point. What can I do for you?'

'All right, I'll be blunt then. There's a war coming. Let's start with that.'

Jeiros felt insulted. 'You think I'm blind? I seem to remember coming to you for some help in stopping it.'

Vale shrugged. 'So many eyes seem to be screwed wilfully shut these days. Since you've seen it coming, I'm sure you'll be well prepared to support the speaker's dragons in whatever may come. I am, of course, at your disposal if you need any help. In securing the supply of potions to the speaker's eyries, for example.'

'I see.' Had he been listening at the door? No, he couldn't have been; it was a very thick door, and for precisely the reason that Bellepheros hadn't wanted anyone pressing their ear against it and finding out things that they shouldn't. So what then? Or is he simply cleverer than I thought? Jeiros' thoughts grew petulant. But if he's that clever then he can bloody well do something about keeping this from getting completely out of hand. 'Then I am grateful to you for your offer. The threat of the Red Riders is a real one and I shall examine what you might do to be of assistance. You might encourage the speaker to use her dragons to supply the eyries of the realms with our potions, perhaps.' As if that's going to happen.

'The speaker does not listen to me.'

Jeiros gave an unsympathetic shrug. 'And the second matter?' Was that regret I saw there, Night Watchman?

'The second is a little more ... awkward.' For a moment the Night Watchman seemed unsure of himself, something Jeiros had never thought he'd see. 'When Speaker Hyram died, did you examine his body?'

Jeiros shook is head. Why is he asking me this? 'No. We were not asked to do so.'

'Do you have to be asked?'

'Unless there is some reason for suspicion, yes.'

Vale smiled thinly. 'And Hyram falling off a balcony did not strike you as a matter of suspicion?'

'Obviously so, but a hundred of your men came forward to say that Shezira had been with Hyram when he fell. What was there to question? He was pushed.'

'What if he wasn't pushed? What if he fell?'

Jeiros had to laugh at that. 'You're asking me? I thought that was quite impossible.'

'What if I was wrong?'

'Then the council of kings and queens has made a terrible mistake, Night Watchman, and so have you.' He watched Vale's face harden, his lips pinch together. He means it: he really doubts. This could be an opportunity ... 'And the rest of us,' he added. 'We could not have known though, even if we had examined the body. We could have said which of his injuries had killed him, and whether he'd received them from the fall or whether he'd received them before he fell. But we could not have said whether he fell or was pushed, nor if he was pushed, whose hand was guilty. We are alchemists, Night Watchman, not magicians.' Which was mostly true. Mostly.

'You might have known if he had been poisoned.'

'We might, that is true.' Jeiros frowned. 'Do you have reason to suspect such a thing?' And, if so, why bring it up now when you've just executed someone for his murder? Where are you going with this?

'No.' Vale shook his head and stood up. 'No real reason. It was only a thought.' He walked to the door. 'Thank you for your time, Acting Grand Master. Do think about how my soldiers might best help you to ensure a steady supply of your potions to the speaker's eyries in the times to come.'

The Night Watchman left. The door closed behind him with a soft click. Jeiros and Vioros looked at one another.

'After all that, what does he want?' asked Vioros.

'Nothing good,' sniffed Jeiros. 'I think he wanted to let us know that no one is safe.' He looked Vioros in the eye and smiled mirthlessly. 'Do you want some more good news? Something else no one will have told you? You know that I've been counting dragons, trying to find out whether we're still missing one?'

Vioros rolled his eyes. 'I do apologise for that. I've been dropping hints where I can that counting dragons is not the way ...'

Jeiros couldn't help himself. He started to laugh, then struggled to get himseli under control. 'I'm sorry, old friend. Very rude of me. But counting dragons has been more informative than I thought. Did you know that, for the last three months, the number of hatchlings that won't take has doubled? They're putting down dragons every week in most eyries. Most of the dragon-kings don't even know yet.' He glanced at the letters on his desk. 'Nor our soon-to-be-queens either, but the eyrie-masters do. Across the realms our eyries are still hatching as many good dragons as they used to. But I've had letters back from every eyrie-master now and they all say the same. The number of hatchlings that refuse to eat has almost doubled. Just like that, and they'd like to know why. They'd like to know what's happening. You can understand why they are nervous, with their dragon production rates at risk.' Jeiros shook his head in disbelief.

'And do we know what is happening?' Vioros raised an eyebrow.

'Yes, of course we do. And it is not what is happening, it is what has happened, and it is certainly not good. But beside our current difficulties that's by the by. The rogue dragon is definitely alive.'

'It is?'

'Unquestionably.'

'And you found this out through accountancy? I'm impressed.' For a moment, Vioros looked truly amazed. Jeiros hesitated, savouring the moment before he ruined it.

'No, I'm afraid not. It's rather more straightforward. Reports have reached me from Valmeyan's eyries. It was seen two months ago. It's been burning things.'

'Are we sure it was the rogue?'

'Yes, quite sure.' Jeiros shook his head and sat heavily back behind his desk. 'There aren't any other white dragons and there were rather a lot of witnesses, I'm afraid.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

27

 

Useful Food

 

 

Kemir left the boat carefully tied by the lake shore in case the boy came back. He was probably dead. If he wasn't yet, most likely he would be soon. But that can't be my problem. I didn't do this. The dragon did it.

You keep telling yourself that, shot back another inner voice. You just keep telling yourself that.

He left some food as well. What was left of the cow. The meat was starting to turn but it was all he had. Snow watched him at his work. He could feel her curiosity.

Why are you are leaving food for someone who tried to kill you?

Kemir snarled, 'Because I'm a man, not a dragon. But how would you understand?' She was at her most frightening when she was like this. She would sit on her haunches, wings folded, tail curled around in front of her, absolutely still. She'd watch in silence until Kemir forgot that she was there. Then he'd turn around, and there she was, looming thirty feet over him, blotting out the sky. Just watching. Or else she'd idly stretch her wings and cast what felt like half the world into shadow for a few seconds.

Do you want to leave this food too? She dropped half a donkey onto the ground. There were the remains of some kind of harness around the donkey's head. It clearly hadn't been minding its own business wild in a field somewhere when Snow had taken it.

'I don't think he'll want it raw.' He couldn't help thinking about where the donkey had come from.

Snow gave the dead donkey a pensive look, then she ambled on all fours over to the shore of the lake. She picked up a few stones, some of them roughly the same size as Kemir, and built a ring. Then she gathered some more stones and piled them on top. And then she breathed fire on them.

Kemir took a hurried step away as flames washed over the ground around the stones. Snow didn't stop. She didn't even pause for breath. The fire just went on and on and on.

After a bit the heat was too much and he had to walk right away into the trees. She was still at it a minute later, the flames pouring out of her. Made him wonder how long she could keep it up before she ran out of breath ...

We do not need to breathe, Kemir. It is a ... He felt her rummaging in his head for the word. A habit. An instinct. It is not a necessity.

Which explained how she'd vanished into a lake for five days. He shuddered. Everything breathed. Everything.

Eventually Snow stopped. She kicked off the stones from the top, gingerly, as though even she could feel how hot they were. Then she slit the donkey open from end to end and shook out all its guts into the first ring of stones. She put one hot stone into the cavity that had been the donkey's chest, then put the carcass on top of its guts and piled the rest of the stones back on top.

Will that be better?

One moment you do that. And the next moment you'll eat him. Or me. 'Since when do dragons do cooking?' he asked, when he couldn't think of anything else.

My ... There was a strange tone to her thoughts. Something wistful, winsome, almost awestruck. My first mistress showed this to me. When we thought the world was ending and there was nothing left to be done. Sasya.

Kemir raised an eyebrow. 'You had a mistress?'

A moon-sorceress. The ones who created us. They are long gone. He felt her push the memories out of her thoughts. I found a road. I have not seen this ... He felt her plucking the word out of his head again. I have not seen a donkey creature before. I was hungry, but I only ate things with four legs. Kemir thought he sensed a hint of reproach. These are ... They taste like horse but sweeter. I like them better.

Kemir slowly came closer again. 'Everything with two legs ran away screaming, then?'

Some of them fell over where they stood and clutched their heads. I do not remember so much fear in your kind. One of them decided to die. He was old.

'What do you mean decided to die? You mean you scared him to death?'

I did not try to. I was hungry. I left your hind alone. I took as many things with four legs as I needed. 'Donkeys?'

Other things too. Horses and dogs and buffalo. I did not even burn their wagons, Kemir.

'I get it, dragon. You were very very careful not to hurt any people. Some of them died anyway, but that really wasn't your fault.' He spat and turned away. 'You still ate Nadira.'

Snow peered at him. Her face had the same hungry expression as it ever did but her thoughts had changed. There was a music in them. She was laughing at him.

I see into your mind, Kemir. You think you can be different from others of your kind. You think the young one we leave behind us could be different too, if only we could find him and take him with us. But we cannot do that if he will not come, and besides, you are fooling yourself. I do not understand why you try to change how things are, Kemir. I am a dragon. Some of us are white and some are black; some are larger and others are smaller; but beneath our scales we are all simply dragons. Your kind are the same, Kemir. All of you. You always fight one another and you always will. I remember more than you can imagine. I remember from long ago, before the world was broken. Your kind were always this way even then, and you, Kemir, are no different. I can see into you and I know this to be true. Embrace what you are, Kemir. Do not try to be something else. Your enemies are merely those with bigger armies and sharper swords. That is the only difference between you.

Kemir bit his lip. 'My enemies have dragons. Dragons are not weapons.'

No, Kemir, that is exactly what we are. But not for you. You are food. The order of things has become twisted. 'I am not food, damn you!'

Snow didn't answer. She was laughing at him again. You amuse me. Perhaps that will save you when I become hungry.

'Oh, I'm amusing food now, am I? Just when I thought useful couldn't get any worse.' He took a deep breath. 'If there was a road and it was busy then there must have been a town not far away.'

You are thinking of the boy again.

'Some things can't be undone and some things can never be forgiven. What you did to him can't be put right. Nor can what you did to Nadira. But you could try.'

Snow was looking at him. Kemir felt her puzzlement.

Why?

'Forgiveness.'

Forgiveness, Kemir? I do not understand this. In your mind, it seems it is the opposite of revenge. I see revenge in you often. All of your kind. You, Kemir, you would rather die trying and failing to have revenge than live and forgive. Why would you do that? I do not understand either forgiveness or revenge.

Kemir laughed. 'Yet that's what drives you too.'

No, Kemir. I seek to free my kind from their slavery. I do not seek to wilfully punish those who did it to us. I will do what needs to be done, no more. I will eat when I am hungry, Kemir, or perhaps for pleasure. But not for spite.

'Some people think that forgiveness is the most beautiful thing in the world. And you can't have that unless you have a little revenge too.'

I see nothing beautiful in being stupid. She cocked her head. I see, however, that you want this forgiveness very much. Why?

His fists were clenched. He hadn't noticed, but now they were so tight that it hurt. Why indeed? 'Because I should have stopped you. I should have stopped you from eating the people that lived here. I should have stopped you from eating Nadira.'

Ah. I see.

Very slowly Snow lowered her head until she held it just above the ground. She moved closer, right in front of him. So close that he could reach out and ...

Touch me, Kemir.

His heart was racing. She was warm. He could feel her heat. And she was huge. He reached out a hand and touched the scales of her nose. He was shaking, he realised, like a leaf.

When the snows melt on the tops of the mountains and the melt-water rushes down their sides and the rivers bloat and swell and froth, who will stop the flood? She growled and withdrew. Foolish man. When the flood comes, you run. When mountains topple, you run. When the earth cracks, you run. So it is when a dragon comes. Unless you are Kemir, who wrings his hands and says 'I should have stopped you.'

For a moment the fear went away. Kemir walked past Snow's head to where her front claws sank into the soft ground. He kicked her as hard as he could. Not that she'd even feel it, but it was satisfying, kicking a dragon. 'Fine. Leave the boy. Just take me to the town you saw. We'll find out where we are. And don't burn it. The food there is all useful food, remember, and besides, I might want to stay there. You can find out where Valmeyan and his dragons are and then you can start burning things again.'

As you wish, Kemir. I am no longer hungry today.

'And I will not be afraid of you.'

Perhaps I have taught you something of value then.

'And stop laughing at me.'

He put the boy out of his mind as best he could and climbed onto Snow's back. She lumbered across the ground to the edge of the clearing she'd made in the forest and then started to run. Kemir closed his eyes. This was the bit that always scared him the most. The dragon's whole body pulsed with every step. The earth shook and the trees quivered in sympathy. He felt like a little boat, tossed on the waves of a stormy sea, hurled this way and that, at the mercy of the dragon-rider harness they'd stolen months ago, which didn't even fit properly. As Snow reached the edge of the water, she made one last effort. Kemir felt himself grow heavy and then they were flying, over the water, tossing spray everywhere. Each beat of Snow's wings levered her upward, pressing him into her scales. She circled once and then put her back towards the morning sun. Below them, all Kemir could see was endless forest and the silver ribbon of a river flowing idly away from the lake.

Maybe she's right. How do you stop a hungry dragon, after all? But the thought felt hollow. Somehow. That was the answer. You didn't just give up and say it couldn't be done. Of that much he was sure.

After an hour of following the river, they began to see cleared spaces in the forest. Then something that might have been a boat on the river. Then a village, more fields, more boats, all dotted about like tiny little toys. Which made him remember playing dragon-lords with his cousin Sollos when they'd been little boys. They'd make mounds in the dirt and find little stones to be people and then they'd pretend they were dragons and smash it all to pieces.

Well now he knew how those little stones felt. He wondered what they thought, the little people on the ground below him now, when they looked up and saw a dragon. Did a chill run down their spines? Were they frozen to the spot, wondering if today was the day the monster would swoop down and snatch them in its jaws? Or did they shrug their shoulders, mutter 'There goes another one' to their neighbours and get on with what they were doing? As if dragons were just another kind of weather.

Snow banked and pitched down, swooping low over the next village. As she dived, Kemir couldn't hear anything except the rush of the wind past his face, but when he craned his neck over Snow's shoulder, he saw the people. A few were staring, rooted to the spot, but most were running away. They were running ahead of Snow, out into their fields. He couldn't hear them screaming, but he knew that they were.

Well that answers that, then. 'Why do people always run in front of whatever is chasing them?' he shouted. 'Why don't they scatter?' And why am I shouting? No one can hear me over this wind and the dragon doesn't need to anyway.

All food runs, thought Snow. She felt smug. Pleased at the reaction below.

'They are not food!'

Everything that runs is food. Kemir felt a hunger in the dragon now, almost a craving. He could picture her crashing into the village, spraying fire, smashing houses into splinters, tossing screaming men and women up into the air for the sheer joy of it, just like he and Sollos had done in their games. The visions lasted for a while, long after Snow had left the village behind and risen back into the sky. He shuddered. They weren't his own visions, he was fairly sure of that. They had far too vicious a joy to them.

Other villages came and went, scattered patches of open space amid the great blanket of trees. Then the forest began to break up. There were more people, more fields jigsawed together, more roads, more boats on the river, and then finally a town. Kemir wasn't sure what he'd expected — probably a muddy collection of houses, little more than a village that had sprawled out of control. What he hadn't expected was a small city- It straddled the river, with strong stone walls protecting both halves. It even had a little castle. Snow changed course, keeping her distance.

'Are there dragons here?' That was his first thought.

No. If there were, I would have freed them. Snow started to descend. We will fly further until we find some.

'Or you could let them know that you're here. Burn some fields, eat some cows, that sort of thing. Donkeys, if you think they taste better. Scare them. Do whatever you want to do. Make noise. Let them see you. Enough to draw a few riders from their eyries to come have a look. Then when they come, you eat them.' Slowly. Crunch crunch. Like chewing on an icicle.

Like Ash.

'Yes. Like Ash. Don't hunt them where they're strong. Draw the other dragons to you.'

Snow thought for a while. Will there be fighting men in this town?

'It's a castle, Snow. Castles have soldiers. There's really not much point if they don't.'

Then they will have weapons for fighting dragons and the people who ride on us. Kemir could feel her weighing up choices. She turned and headed away from the town.

'What are you doing, dragon? Are you afraid?'

No. She was laughing. I have no need for you while I do this, but you are still useful and I do not want you to be dead. I will do as you suggest. I will burn this place. You may watch from far away. It will be safer.

'No! No burning! No need to kill anyone, Snow. You understand me? Just scare them and then leave. Useful food, remember.'

I understand, Kemir, but I will decide for myself which of you are useful.

She didn't say anything more, but landed on a hilltop a good few miles from the town and waited until Kemir unstrapped himself and got down. He could have stayed, he supposed. Could have stayed in the saddle, but what difference would it have made? She could have torn him out with one twist of her tail, or else simply ignored him. So he shuddered as Snow launched herself into the sky again. He was very glad, he decided, that he was where he was. On the ground, far away from where Snow was going.

 

 

28

 

Poison in the Blood

 

 

Jehal was dying. He knew he was. The pain was getting worse. He grew slowly weaker until he didn't know he could possibly be any weaker and yet the next time he awoke, he was. The smell was bad too.

In some ways he was surprised he was alive at all. He'd lost a dreadful lot of blood. He felt perpetually light-headed, which was probably a mercy. And yet, when he hadn't died, he'd felt a joyous spark of hope. For few days he'd thought he might even heal. And then came the smell.

He'd seen men take a wound in a tournament and die, just like this, surrounded by the stench of their own rotting. The alchemists hadn't been able to help them and Jehal had little hope they would be able to help him.

If they cared.

He had a dim memory that Zafir might have come to him the day after Shezira had shot him. She'd held his hand and said some soft words that might have seemed comforting at the time. Or maybe she hadn't. Maybe she was a dream like all the other dreams. Mostly he dreamed of Lystra and of the son he would never see. If my bloodline dies, so does yours. Neatly done, Queen Shezira. If it wasn't me you'd crippled, I would applaud you for such an efficient and ruthless revenge. But you messed up. I'm dying, and now all that's left is to mock us both for your incompetence. What use am I dead? How do I protect them?

He got angry sometimes, which was always a mistake because he didn't have the energy to be angry. He'd rail and spit at the world and then he'd fade away and wake up hours later to find that even more of his strength had ebbed away. Men and women came and went from his bedside, silent frightened ghosts who looked at him and then looked away. Afraid. As if they were the ones who were slowly dying in the gilded prison that was the Tower of Dusk.

Sometimes he thought about his own father, cocooned in his sickbed for nearly a decade. This must have been what you saw, he thought. In the early days. When there was still a part of you alive in there. Then such a sorrow filled him that he wept.

He thought of Meteroa too. He would understand. Did Shezira know? Did she know what King Tyan had done to him? My brother butchered my sisters and my mother. My father ...I don't even know what my father did to my uncle. What a family we are.

I have done such terrible things.

Yes, you have, said another voice. A new voice, but he couldn't see anyone. Not that that meant anything. He was probably dreaming again. The voice was another fragment of his slowly shattering self, most likely. Come to remind him of all the things he'd done wrong so that he could be properly miserable before he finally got around to dying. Come to remind him of how brother Calzarin came by his murderous madness.

Piss off, he told it, and laughed as best he could. If he couldn't sneer at anyone else, he could always sneer at himself.

I could do that if you like, said the voice with a sniff of amusement. Or I could save your life. You choose.

Then I'll have my life saved, please. Although I suppose I should as^ what it's going to cost me.

A lot.

Doesn't it always? He hated feeling so weak. He was weak even in his dreams now.

Yes. It usually does, agreed the voice.

So what's it going to be? Are you some part of me that's been hiding away all my miraculous powers of healing and recovery, waiting for me to agree to a life dedicated to the betterment of others? Or are you one of the spirits I don't believe in, come to tell me I can have my life bacf( if I swear to become a good person? Because I'm not sure either is playing to my strengths.

No. None of that crap. I want your money.

Jehal spluttered. Now I know you're just another part of me. Although I'm a little disappointed at my apparent lacl^ of imagination. Is that what happens when you die? Do you become dull first? I must confess that I have largely avoided the' (omjniny of the near dead, but those I have seen have usually been most tediously dull. Deathly dull, even. Heh.

I want something else as well.

Do try not to bore me.

What I want is not yours to give. One day you'll try to take it and find that I got there first. Let it go. It's really not that important to you.

Oh, here we go. You know, I've heard this story before. What are we talking about? My soul, is it? It's usually something like that. Whatever it is, being told it's really not that important to me rather convinces me that it is, in fact, desperately important to me.

I want the Adamantine Spear.

Oh. For a moment Jehal was nonplussed. So do I.

No, you don't. The other voice huffed impatiently. You want what it means. You want to be speaker. You don't give a toss about the spear or the ring.

You're much too crotchety to be me. You remind me of my uncle.

Try imagining that I'm a wizard. I'm going to take away the poison in your blood.

Oh, really?

Yes, really. Piss me off when you're better and I can always put it back again.

Jehal tried to laugh. As deathbed visions go, I like you.

We have a agreement?

No.

Oh. Well, I suppose I'll leave you to your lingering death then.

Jehal chuckled, or would have if he could have managed it. The Adamantine Spear? Some old relic that sat around gathering dust, wheeled out by whoever happened to be high priest of the Glass Cathedral every ten years. What did he care about that? They could always make another one. A better one maybe. One that didn't weigh so much for a start. Or he could simply change his mind. The thought made him want to laugh even more. I'd better not let myself know what I'm thinking. If I'm going to betray myself later, I'd much rather it came as a surprise ... He took a deep breath and lay back. He was probably going to die now, he thought, but at least he'd go out with a smile on his face. Then, as an afterthought, he screwed up his lace and asked. Whoever you are, you don't happen to count Vale Teuton as a friend, do you?

The voice seemed to shrug. I don't give a fig for him one way or the other.

That's good. Because if you really aren't just some ghost and you really are going to make me better, then I think I'm going to have to kill him. In some horribly slow and nasty way.

I'm sure that would be very interesting to watch but sadly I suspect I shall miss the occasion. Do we have an agreement?

Can you do what you say you can?

Yes. Last chance. Do we have an agreement or not?

We do.

A warmth engulfed Jehal, as though the softest fur blanket in the palace had wrapped itself around him. He closed his eyes and drifted off to somewhere far away. Somewhere past the ends of the worlds and off into the void between them, where everything was black and still, where clocks and hearts beat slower and slower and time didn't march any more ...

And then he was back.

He opened his eyes. The pain was gone. He felt strong again. He tried to sit up and quickly discovered that the pain being gone and feeling strong were rather fleeting and illusory things. Still ... still, he did feel a lot better.

He looked to his left and caught a fleeting glimpse of someone in a pale grey shirt dashing out of the door. The ceiling above him was familiar. He was still in the Tower of Dusk but not in the Great Hall, where Shezira had almost killed him. He recognised the room. She'd slept here in the days before the Night of the Knives, when he'd come to see her and played his last card to force her and Hyram apart.

You might as well stop thinking about either of them. They're both dead, for better or for worse. Zafir's going to get her war and you might as well get used to it.

The door flew open with a bang. Jehal had to look twice to recognise the face. Jeiros, the alchemist.

'Prince Jehal! It is truly a miracle!' The alchemist rushed over. He tore off the blanket and started poking around between Jehal's legs.

'Excuse me!' Jehal was naked, he realised. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised about that. He tried to lift his head to see what Jeiros was doing, what damage Shezira had actually done to him, whether any of it was permanent, but the alchemist had piled the blanket up on his chest and he couldn't see. He was numb from the waist down and could only vaguely feel the alchemist's prodding. 'I'd prefer if you didn't do that.'

'The rot has gone. Simply gone! I've never seen anything like it!' Jeiros carefully laid the blanket back where it Was supposed to be. 'No one will believe this. I have to get Vioros!'

'Master Alchemist!' Jehal's head was spinning. 'I am not an exhibition!' He felt sick. The alchemist's enthusiasm was overwhelming. 'And I can't feel my legs. I trust they are still there.'

'Yes yes yes. The wound is filled with Dreamleaf, that's all. You're going to live, Prince Jehal. Do you understand? Every other man I have ever seen who had a wound like this turn bad has died. And you're going to live. How? How is that possible?' He came around and leaned over Jehal's face. His eyes narrowed. 'Yes indeed. How is it possible?'

Jehal closed his eyes. 'I do not know, Master Alchemist. I had a vision. Whether it was real or a dream I couldn't tell you. Believe me when I say that I'm as surprised as you are to find that I am mysteriously healed. If it was a miracle then I shall thank Aruch for his prayers and then go back to ignoring him. If it wasn't, well then I'd like to know what happened at least as much as you would. Probably more.' He took a deep breath. He had a headache now from so much talking. Which was annoying. His mouth, as he'd often observed to his lovers, was one of his best features.

Speaking of which ...

'Master Alchemist!' Jeiros was still nearby. Jehal could feel his presence.

'Prince Jehal? I have to inform the speaker. The danger is largely gone. Healing will take a long time, but we can help. Now the poison is gone from your blood ...'

Poison in your blood. That's what the voice said ... 'Master Alchemist! Please!' He tried to raise his head to watch Jeiros more carefully, but the effort was beyond him. 'Before you go, there is one thing I would rather hear from you than from Zafir when she comes.' Assuming she's not coming to have me executed along with everyone else who doesn't bow and scape to her every whim. 'What damage has Queen Shezira done to me?'

Jeiros hesitated. Jehal counted out the seconds. Quite a lot then. I'm not going to like this.

'Your leg will heal, but I'm afraid you will always limp and it will always be weak. I think in time you will be able to walk without a staff on which to lean, but I doubt you will ever run again. I think you'll find riding a horse particularly unpleasant too.'

'And dragons?' You're not telling me something. I can hear it in your voice.

'There may be some discomfort, but no more than at any other time. I'm sure a special harness could be made if it gives you any trouble.'

Well, that wasn't what you're hiding. Do I really want to thinly about it? But if I don't hear it now, I'll hear it from Zafir, and that will be worse. 'And?'

'Wait and see, Your Holiness. It may not be as bad as it seems.' Everything in Jeiros' voice betrayed him.

'Holiness?' Jehal croaked out a laugh. 'I'm not crowned, Master Alchemist. Perhaps I never will be. Now is that all? A limp and an aversion to horses and feats of athletics I can live with. Or is there more?'

You should really wait, Your Holiness. It is too early to know—'

'To know what?' He knew. He already knew and it turned him cold inside. He might even wish he'd died after all. 'What of women? What of that?'

Jeiros sighed. 'I cannot say for sure, Prince Jehal. It will be a long time before you can ... Well. And there will likely be some pain. At best. For some time to come, at any rate.'

'And what of heirs?'

'It is much too early to say, Your Holiness. I think, once you are healed, you will still perform as well as you ever did in that particular regard. Until you can be sure, however, I suggest you take great care of the heir you have.'

Jehal didn't hear the alchemist leave. The numbness had spread right up his spine and down his arms and into his head.

Take great care of the heir you have. So maybe Shezira got exactly what she wanted after all. Did he want to be alive like that? He wasn't sure. Perhaps Jeiros was right and he should wait. The alchemist's voice hadn't held much certainty either way. Best not to even think about it. If only it was that that easy. But I can think about other things. Distractions. I owe it to myself to heal. I will heal, and I will be whole again. Yes, and when I am healed there will be blood, and a great deal of it will come from the Night Watchman. Think about that. Much more pleasing.

 

 

29

 

A Taste of Happiness

 

 

Snow landed in the town. There weren't many places large enough. In fact, there was only one, right next to the little building that Kemir had called a castle. The space had people in it, but Snow ignored them. Sure enough, as she swooped out of the sky, they ran screaming, senseless with panic. The ones who weren't quick enough were crushed or sent flying through the air as she smashed into the hard-packed dirt. The stupid and the slow. Around her, rumbles of tumbling stone and several clouds of dust marked where the people of the town hadn't made their little houses strong enough. Snow swept her head from side to side and shrieked.

It is habit. It is what we do when we return to our nesting place. It is our way of greeting our kind. Kemir was far away, but she talked to him as if he was still on her back. She wasn't sure how useful he really was, but she missed having him with her. She missed the company, the sharing of thoughts. She missed being part of a nest. It will be good to have other dragons around me again.

She ate a couple of the people she'd crushed in her landing. Then she shifted back onto her hind legs, lifted up her head and sent a column of fire into the air.

Let them know that you're here. That is done. It seemed all too easy. Would that really be enough to make other dragons come? Scare them. That was done too. She could feel the fear all around her. Make noise. Let them see you.

Do whatever you want to do. Kemir had only the slightest idea of what that would mean. What she wanted to do was burn the town to ash, slaughter the little things that lived here and spend a few delicious days hunting down the ones that escaped. The hunting was the best part. The feelings of her prey when they realised they'd been found. The hopeless despair, the laughable defiance, their pathetic rages, the pitiful pleading and begging. As if she could be swayed ...

I miss what we once were. When we fought together, all dragons side by side with the silver riders on our backs and armies that filled the horizon.

No. Burning the town wasn't going to bring back the glory they'd had before the silver men had broken the world. That would have to wait.

A long pause followed. The realisation slowly settled on her: she'd landed in a place that didn't have enough space for her to take off again.

Why did I do that? She knew the answer even as she asked herself the question. She'd done that so that she wouldn't have any choice about smashing up at least a part of the town on her way out. Except now she didn't want to. Or rather she did, but she'd decided not to. Kemir is right. We are old and wise in our way, yet we are impatient like children. That is how we were made. Creatures of impulse and destruction and whim.

She looked at the roads and alleys that led into the town square. They were small and narrow. Houses pressed around them. They most certainly weren't built for dragons. She was wondering what she should do and whether it really mattered that much if she knocked a few buildings out of the way when she picked up a familiar taste among the thoughts around her. Anger. Fear. Anticipation ...

She knew it was coming. She lurched up into the air. A scorpion bolt slammed into her neck about a yard from her head. She felt a fierce pinprick of pain, as though she'd been stung. If she hadn't moved, it might have hit her in the head. It surprised her. In the great war of long ago, the humans had had nothing like this. They'd had a lot of other things, magics and devices that could kill, but nothing that could hurt, nothing that stung.

The anger hit her like a wall. She skittered and turned to face the castle. Her tail flicked back and forth, smashing the houses behind her to bits. She barely noticed. Someone on the castle had tried to kill her, and now they deserved everything they were about to get. I am sony, Kemir. I know you will be angry.

Sorry? No, not really, since that implied regret, and dragons did not understand regret. Maybe she was sorry that Kemir would be sad. Maybe that was it. She lunged forward, propped her front claws against the castle wall and reared up. Her long neck arched over the castle walls; slowly and methodically she drenched its innards with fire. Men screamed and died. Wave after wave of joy rippled through her. Fear my fire, feel my power, little ones, she told them. You should have fled when I came. She reached up higher and pushed, trying to forced her way inside the castle walls so she could get at the inner keep. Stones fell, but the wall held. She backed away as far as she could and hurled herself at it, crashing into the stone with her side. It still refused to fall.

Now I am ANGRY! Those who should fight hide in caves or now behind ramparts of stone. So where else shall I spend my wrath? Where else shall I take my pleasure?

Furious, she turned on the town. She rose up again and spewed fire in furious arcs all around her. Then she crouched and sprang at the widest of the roads, smashing her way through the cramped and fragile buildings with all the delicacy and care of an avalanche. Houses splintered and smashed as she barged past them. Dust and smoke swirled around her, pieces of debris rained in sporadic showers, and then she was at the city walls, clumsily levering herself over them, head and neck and tail and front claws scrabbling for purchase along the top in an effort to pull up the bulk of her body. Her wings flapped furiously and with a lurch she rolled onto the top of the wall and down the other side. Without a pause she was running, charging through the nearby fields as fast as she could, hauling herself up into the air.

Even as she rose, she was turning, twisting back towards the town. If anything, the fury burned stronger that it had at the start. This was how it felt to be a dragon.

You will not escape me. Stone will not save you. Not this time.

She scattered fire across the town. Unleashing the flames always felt good. Like mating, before the alchemists dulled her mind. It left the same hunger inside her too. She would need to eat when she was done here, and eat well.

Below, amid the smoke and the flames, men and women ran and screamed. Food, all of you. Nothing but food. She flew around the castle, gave the tower in the middle of the castle a long blast and then landed on top of it. Stones crumbled under her claws, almost tipping her off. Such was her anger that she tried to sink her teeth into the towers. When they didn't give, she smashed them to pieces with her tail. Every time she tore a new hole in the stone, she poured fire into the wound.

Finally the stone groaned and rumbled. Half the keep crumbled away and tipped her off in a shower of broken masonry. She landed on her back and floundered for a few seconds before she managed to right herself.

Where? How? How do I get to them? They were still alive, some of them. They were buried in there, out of her reach, but she could feel their thoughts. Raw, hot burning terror to make her heart sing with joy. Pain too. A lot of pain, but they were alive, and they were supposed to be dead.

Her anger had become a living thing with a will of its own, as though she carried with her the spirits of all dragonkind, freed from the dull shells the human alchemists made for them. It is enough, she tried to tell it. They are probably dying. Even if they are not, they cannot escape. They are trapped.

No! It is not enough!

But I should leave some to live. That is our plan. Some must live to tell of what has happened. Then other dragons will come and we will take them to us.

But not these! These tried to kill you! Let us destroy them all. Leave nothing but ash and rubble. Burn them to dust!

Why? Because they pricked my scales? She paused to pull the scorpion bolt from her neck. There. It is gone. In a sunrise or two, I will barely remember it.

Because they dared!

She had no answer to that. She smashed and climbed her way back out of the castle. A good portion of the eastern half of the town was ablaze now. The rest of it was doomed. What could burn would burn. Stones would crack and split in the heat. People would collapse, overwhelmed by smoke. Even if she did vent more rage on them, it would make little difference.

And vengeance is futile, remember. That is what I told Kemir.  Dragons do not act out of kindness. Dragons do not forgive, but nor do dragons avenge, So then what is this desire?

She already knew the answer to that. The anger was fading. The rest was pleasure. Fun. Fun forgotten for too long to resist. She launched herself back into the air. The western side of the town, away from the castle, was still intact. She hadn't set fire to even a part of it yet. Already, people were appearing on the eastern riverbank looking for a way to get across.

It would be so easy to destroy them all. And so satisfying, and yet if I do then what have I achieved?

She almost left them then, almost turned and climbed into the sky to wait for more dragons to come, but at the last moment she gave in to her desires and wheeled and dived and plunged down into the river. I have done this before. I remember. The one half of the city she would leave untouched. From the other half, none would escape. When men tried to row, she upended their boats. When they tried to swim, she flipped them out of the water with her tail. Some of them she caught and ate. Others she simply hurled back into the black haze of flickering smoke. Yes, I have done this before. There had been other dragons then. And things that weren't dragons and yet were even more terrifying and made us seem small; and not all that came out of the smoke and the flames was human. I remember. I remember how this feels.

It felt glorious.

She stayed until no one else came to the waterfront. Perhaps an hour passed, perhaps more. Certainly the sun had moved when she took to the air again. She felt sated. Fulfilled? Free?

Happy. That was what she felt. Happy. She hadn't felt happy for a very long time. Lifetimes.

This is not vengeance, Kemir. If you knew the truth, if you felt what I feel now, you would wish it was. I feel joy.

He couldn't know. Not now, not yet, not for a little while. Not until she was done with him. So she took her time flying back to him on his hill, until she could push the feeling back beneath the waters of her thoughts. Until she could keep it in a place Kemir would never see but where she would never forget.

 

 

30

 

The Secrets of the Alchemists

 

 

'King Valmeyan left this morning,' said Jeiros. He wasn't looking at Jehal as he was talking. Well he was, but not at Jehal's face. He frowned and leaned forward. 'You need to relax,' he said as Jehal winced in anticipation of yet more pain. 'Stay very still. Neither of us would be pleased if my stitches go awry.'

All very well for you to say. A searing jab ran right up from his groin as far as his neck. And this is with my veins filled with more Dreamleaf than blood. He bit down on the leather strap that the alchemist had given him.

'Are you still finding it difficult to pass water?'

This is what his father had had to put up with. In the beginning, before disease had taken his mind away. Help to stand, help to eat, help to clean himself. Help with everything. I'd rather die. 'I wouldn't call it difficult. Uncomfortable,' he said through gritted teeth. Unbearable blinding agony, more like. But only Kazah sees how much it pains me, and Kazah doesn't speaks so none of you will ever know.

'The speaker has promised to crown you as soon as you are able to walk into the Glass Cathedral.'

'And how long will that be, Master Alchemist?' She hasn't come to see me. No word. Nothing. Does she thin\ I can't watch her from in here? Does she thinly I don't see who she takes to her bed? He fingered the strip of white silk he kept hidden beneath his pillow. Even confined to his bed, the magical metal Taiytakei dragons roamed the palace at night, guided by his whim. Prince Tichane, King Valmeyan's right hand, he was the one to watch. He had his hands halfway up Zafir's gown already and was plenty busy elsewhere too. Jehal needed to know what he was up to. I need to move. Watching is one thing, but I need to hear. I need to speak. I need to walk. I need to be seen. How quickly people forget that I am even here.

'Another week, perhaps two.' Jeiros shook his head. 'I'm having the best wood-carvers in the city make a crutch for you for the occasion.'

'So I can stumble in with one lifeless leg dragging behind me? No, thank you.'

'It'll be months before you can walk without help. If you ever can. You need to be crowned, Jehal. There are far too many realms without a proper king. Right.' Jeiros straightened up. 'There. The stitches are done. The dressing is changed. You're rid of me for another day. Before you're crowned, there's another ceremony we should have, you and I. I suppose you know most of it already, but there are certain secrets that my order holds that we like to share with our kings and queens.'

Jehal rolled his eyes. 'You mean things like, oh, by the way, the dragons you fly on are only dumb pliable beasts when they're drugged to the eyeballs with your special potions.'

'That's the start of it, yes. It can take anything between a week and a month for the effects to wear off. Did you know that?'

'And then they're ravening vengeful monsters. I do know what happened at the redoubt, Jeiros.'

'Then you know how clever they become. The white one's been seen again. Did you know that, Your Holiness?'

'No. I heard it was dead with the rest.'

Jeiros cocked his head and flashed a grimace. 'That's what princes get to hear. Kings get to hear that the white has been seen in the Worldspine. Without a rider this time. It burned exactly half a town to ash. Some of Valmeyan's riders went to investigate. Three of them didn't come back: nor did their dragons. By now it could be more.'

Jehal sniggered. 'No wonder the King of the Crags is in such a hurry to be home. And I suppose Zafir is positively brimming with enthusiasm to rally the realms and her riders to hunt your mysterious rogue.'

'This is not funny.'

'You keep them in dim servitude. Are you surprised they're so angry when they wake up?'

'The Order keeps us all alive, Prince Jehal. We'd be nothing to them but food otherwise.'

'If anyone did something like that to me and was then foolish enough to let me slip, I'm quite sure I would prefer something more lingering than simply eating them.' Are you listening, Vale Tassan?

The alchemist shook his head. 'There's a lot more. Where they come from, where they go when they die. Even we don't know that. But we know that their spirits go in an endless cycle. They're not like us. They remember their past lives, or rather they would, if they awoke. Do you know how many times dragons have escaped us and awoken from their stupor?' Jehal had never heard of such a thing happening at all, at least not until the white dragon at the redoubt. It must have shown on his face because Jeiros smiled. 'No, Prince Jehal, the redoubt was not the first time. There are dragons out there among us who have awoken before. Who have awoken and been destroyed. Who have returned as a hatchling, remembering everything that happened to them. Knowing everything that we do to them.'

'And then you do it to them again.'

'If we can, yes.' Jeiros nodded. 'If we can't then they die. You see, Prince Jehal, there is a great deal that even you don't know. Knowledge we hold for kings and queens and the masters of our order, and for them alone.'

'Kings and queens and master alchemists? Why so miserly?'

'Knowledge is dangerous, Prince Jehal. You of all people understand that. Knowledge is a means to power. '

Jehal laughed, even though that always hurt. 'And there I was, imagining that you were hoarding all this knowledge simply to give your order a reason for being.'

The alchemist didn't bite. If anything, he sounded sad. 'Seventy years ago, a rider happened upon some of our secrets. He took it upon himself to free his dragon of our potions. He thought they would be more powerful, and indeed they are. His dragon ate him. Then it ate a lot of other people too. It destroyed a realm. Nor was that the first time.'

'I've never heard of this!'

'Oh you but have, Prince Jehal. You know almost everything about it. The story of a realm ripped apart by its own royal family's infighting? Their eyries destroyed, their riders slain, their dragons stolen? A realm rendered so weak that those around it simply helped themselves to the pieces. A realm that barely exists any more, with no king, no queen. A realm whose people shift in endless wandering though the Sea of Sand ...' 'The Syuss.'

'The Syuss. You see. You do know the story.' 'But that was ... I thought that was ...'

The master alchemist was smiling again. 'Prince Kazan? Civil war? A revolt against the oppressions of King Tiernel? No. Kazan was the rider stupid enough to awaken his dragon. Twelve other dragons went missing trying to find him. Fortunately half of them didn't have time to wake and still it took the intervention of three neighbouring realms and Speaker Ayzalmir to put an end to it. Hundreds of riders were killed. Most of what you think you know is true, the picking over the pieces afterwards, the destruction of the realm as it was. But the beginning ...' Jeiros grinned broadly. 'Not what you think. There are always the same number of dragons in the realms, Prince Jehal. This is why you have so many eggs in your eyrie and yet so few of them hatch, because no egg can hatch until another dragon dies. But do you know why? Do you know how many? When they do hatch, a quarter of hatchlings only last a few days. Again, do you know why? Do you know how the dragons were tamed? No, you don't.'

'No, there you are wrong, Master Jeiros.' Jehal screwed up his face as he shifted slightly in his bed. 'I know that story. The last of the great wizards sucked all the magic out of the realms in one mighty spell ...' He stopped. Jeiros was trying not to laugh.

'Forgive me, Your Holiness. The stories of the Adamantine Spear and of the last great wizard and other such mumbo-jumbo. These are stories for children, not for kings, not even for princes.' He cocked his head. 'You know how the dragons at the redoubt were defeated, poisoned by their own greed. The Embers trace their traditions back to the first free men. We fed our first potions to the wild dragons in the only way we knew. Then we sought out their eggs. At first we killed the hatchlings, but then we found we could use them. It made finding the rest a lot easier.' He chuckled. 'No, the symbols of the speaker are a ring and a spear, but that is all they are, symbols. They might have had a power once, but not any more.'

Jehal narrowed his eyes. 'Are you lying to me, Master Alchemist? I had thought the Silver King tamed the dragons.'

Jeiros' face didn't give anything away. 'We guard our secrets well and if you understood them, you would guard them too.' He reached the door and bowed. 'Good evening to you, Prince Jehal. When you are a king, we will speak of these matters some more.'

'One moment, Master Alchemist. How much of this does Zafir know?'

Jeiros shook his head. 'She is a queen, Your Holiness, and the speaker. She knows as much as she needs to know. More than you.' With that, he bowed one last time and left. Jehal closed his eyes. That's a lot to thinly about and I don't have the strength these days. One at a time then. The Syuss. He reached into his memories, trying to think, but all the stories he could remember were filled with holes. He could feel himself drifting, losing his concentration. That was the Dreamleaf messing with him. Better Dreamleaf than constant burning agony. He shuddered. If anyone ever wanted to torture him again, all they'd have to do was bring him back to this room, pull out a chamber pot and wave it at him.

Jeiros is bound to have a book. He can lend it to me. Maybe he can lend me someone to read it too, so I don't have to find the energy to sit up.

He wasn't sure whether what happened next was a dream or a memory. He was drifting into sleep and then he was wide awake and the room was much darker; in between, he'd been the speaker, riding to war, clutching the Adamantine Spear in one hand and a cage full of birds in the other. When he let the birds out of their cage, he wasn't sure whether he was Ayzalmir, bringing order and peace to a ruined realm, or whether he was Zafir, and the birds were chaos and death.

A cold certainty gripped him, that someone else was in the room. He strained his ears. Kazah was snoring gently but Kazah didn't count. He could feel someone else. A presence lurking in the shadows, silent and invisible and yet very much there.

'Who are you?' He spoke quietly, almost at a whisper, but in the stillness the words sounded loud. Calm though. At least they sounded calm.

Now he saw a shadow move. He started to rise, but that sent a spear of pain through him.

'Shall I light a candle?' asked the shadow. 'I don't want to wake the boy.'

'I don't converse with ghosts and shadows. Let me see your face.' Jehal slipped his hand under his pillow. He had a knife there, always.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, I'm quite sure, thank you.' I should be shouting for the guard, except most likely they let him in.

'Very well.' The shadow walked away from Jehal's bed to the far corner of the room where a night candle burned. The shadow lit another and slowly returned. Now Jehal could see. The shadow had a man's face. One he'd seen before.

'I know you. You were one of Shezira's men.' Now I really should be shouting for the guard. But the voice. That was much more recent.

The man laughed very softly. 'Are you afraid of me, Prince Jehal?'

'I am unaccustomed to strangers slipping into my room at night. It sets me on edge.' The voice. I know the voice. He wasn't a rider.

'Whereas I am very much accustomed to it. I've been in here with you before. Do you remember? We made an agreement. As deathbed visions go, I like you. That's what you said. Ringing any bells?'

'Ah.' Jehal's mouth felt very dry. 'I'd rather hoped you were a hallucination. I liked you a lot better that way.'

'And I liked you a lot better when you were nearly dead.' 'Who are you?'

'I have many names. Kithyr will do. I am a blood-mage. No one else could have saved your life and I meant every word about putting the poison in your blood right back where it came from. I have it stashed carefully away, should I ever need it. You are mine, Jehal.'

'Right.' Jehal's fingers closed around the hilt of his knife. Never mind the pain. One quick strike and it's over. Then you can scream. 'So now you want something from me in return for my life. And if I don't give it to you, you're going to kill me? Do you really think that's going to work?'

The candle threw strange shadows over the blood mage's face.

It made his features shift and blur and change so they were almost impossible to read. 'Taking the poison out of your wound also took a great deal from me, Prince Jehal. I told you then that what I truly want for that is not yet something that is yours to give. What I want now is more of a first instalment, and much more in your gift. What interests me now is money.'

The fingers gripping the knife relaxed. 'Money? How very tedious of you. Still, if you say you saved my life ...'

'Not your money.' The mage seemed genuinely annoyed. 'The speaker's money. She offers her own weight in gold for each of the Red Riders. That is a tantalising prospect, is it not?'

'Oh, I don't know.' Jehal yawned. 'She's rather small and skinny.' He cocked his head. 'Anyway, if that's what you're after, you seem to have slipped into the wrong bedchamber, blood-mage. I do not appear to be the speaker.'

The mage uttered a soft laugh. 'Even if I abased myself before her throne, I could not be sure that Zafir wouldn't have me put to death simply for being what I am.'

'Zafir is nothing if not a pragmatist.' Now Jehal laughed as well. 'Ancestors! If Shezira was prepared to have a blood-mage around, well, the Edict of Vishmir might as well not exist.'

'Whatever else she is, Zafir is a daughter of the Silver City. Her blood and ours have a very old score to settle. As for Queen Shezira, she had no idea what I was.'

Which had to be true, and so it must have been Shezira's knight-marshal who'd found the blood-mage. A woman of true vision. Brave and bold and cunning and ruthless. Everything I have in Meteroa and more, and so fanatically, obstinately loyal. He sighed. Such a pity. Now, do I shout for the guards or not? Where are we going with this, blood-mage? There was still the knife, still quick and easy to hand.

'I want the Red Riders, Prince Jehal. They have served their purpose and now I want them gone. I can give them to you and you can give them to the speaker. You will get her gold and her favour. Half the gold you will give to me. The favour you can keep. By this we shall see that we can trust each other.'

Trust? Ha! 'Really. You can give them to me?'

kithyr blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness. 'Really. Drotan's Top, Prince Jehal. When Valmeyan is safely back in his mountains. Sooner or later they will strike again at Drotan's Top. When they do they will be yours for the taking.' 'And if I don't?'

'Then the poison goes back in your blood, Prince, and you die.' 'I will be a king after this.'

Kithyr stood by the door. 'And at the speaker's right hand again, and neither will save you, Jehal. It's a simple enough thing that I ask. It costs you nothing and gains you a great deal.'

'That is true.' Jehal smiled and watched the mage go. Then he wiped his palm, lay back and stared at the ceiling. Very true. 'Sooner or later is somewhat vague, blood-mage. I might have deduced that for myself.'

'Yes, you might.' The voice wafted from across the room. 'Then how about this, Prince? In four weeks to the day they will strike again at Drotan's Top. Does that suit you better? I could have it be sooner, but I imagine you will need some time to prepare. I hope, when you see that I am right, you will understand with whom you are dealing and think long and hard about our other agreement.'

Jehal didn't answer. He heard the door whisper open and closed again. When he was sure he was alone, he breathed a deep sigh. His heart was racing.

'Yes,' he whispered to the night. 'Long and hard. I think I shall.'

He had to wait a long time before sleep came to him again. He felt alive, more alive than he had for weeks, more alive than he had since Hyram's fall. When he did finally sink into slumber, he was grinning.

 

 

31

 

The Mausoleum

 

 

Jaslyn left Evenspire as soon as politeness allowed. They barely said goodbye. She didn't tell Almiri where she was going; in fact, she didn't tell anyone. Jaslyn and Hyrkallan and the half a hundred dragons she'd brought with her to Evenspire. North towards home, for the sake of any prying eyes, high over the Blackwind Hills until they passed Fardale and Southwatch and the Last River. Up in the north there were no foothills, no grassy rolling slopes. Just ash and pale silver sand, rippling in giant waves until they crashed against the immense white and grey cliff faces at the edge of the Worldspine. No rivers, no trees, no grass, only ash and sand. Ash and sand. That's all there was to the north. Endless days of dead nothingness before the land slowly changed once more.

When they were well and truly out of sight, they parted ways. Most flew on, back to Outwatch, Southwatch and Sand. The places they belonged. Jaslyn, though, turned west, towards the Worldspine, with Hyrkallan and two others that he'd chosen beside them. Hyrkallan didn't like it, had sternly advised against it. Hyrkallan could go screw himself. In the safety of the deep dead peaks, they turned back south and began their long journey towards the sea. Little streaks of green began to appear in the valleys below, desperate little strips of life clinging to the shady spaces where a few tiny streams would flow on those rare days when the rain came. Out here even the mountain stones seemed bleached white by the heat. Then they crossed the deep gash that seemed to run like an open wound all the way as far as she could see, even into the immeasurable heart of the Spine. The valley of the Last River. The last water in the north, the blood of her realm that ran past the edge of the Blackwind Hills and Southwatch and Sand and all the little hot and dusty towns of Ishmar's Valley until it staggered away into the desert again and finally expired, if it was lucky, in the Lake of Ghosts.

She thought of turning west again, of launching herself even deeper into the Worldspine if only to see what she might find. She always thought of that when she came out here. The Worldspine was rumoured to be filled with hidden valleys, or else to rise up ever higher, until it touched the sky, so high even dragons couldn't pass over. Or else, some said that beyond the Spine lay other realms, another speaker, another palace, yet more dragons, a world a mirror of this one. Up here, this far north, no one would ever find her. The Worldspine belonged to the King of the Crags, or so they told her, but here, she was quite sure, it belonged to no one but itself.

Yes, a part of Jaslyn was minded to explore but that part would have to wait. For now, she had a duty to her sisters. To Almiri, who sat on her dead husband's throne, who was so still that she might have been a statue, whose face looked as brittle as fine glass. Almiri had not taken the news well, though it had hardly come as a surprise. Her husband and their mother, beheaded by a dozen soldiers. No one there to bear witness. No one to hear their last words. Their bodies hung in cages outside the palace instead of being fed to their dragons. And all Jaslyn could do was wonder: What if they were guilty? What if mother did kill Hyram? What if she did try to have Zafir murdered? Is it so unlikely? I wasn't there, I didn't see it all unfold, so how do I know it's not true?

And to Lystra, most of all to little sister Lystra. The last news was that the Viper was going to live after all. Which was a pity, and was what had finally convinced her to fly south and not north. She needed her sister. She needed Lystra to tell her who to fight. To tell her that Jehal was a monster to be slain. Or to tell her that she was wrong. Or, more simply, she needed Lystra to be there. Next to her. In the flesh, alive and breathing. To hug and hold and laugh and tell her that life was not quite so bleak as these mountains. So she stayed her course and watched the valleys below spring into timid uncertain life, still clinging to the great rivers and the few little streams that fed them. They stopped for a night in a valley looking down over the Blackwind River, four riders and four dragons, surrounded by emptiness. In the morning they flew on, steadily south, and as they came closer to the Purple Spur, it seemed as though a line of shadow speckled with stars crossed the spines and ridges of the mountains. Snowfields sprang up, the greens of the valleys thickened and filled with trees and rushing water. Valmeyan's realm. Hyrkallan guided them uneasily now, took them low into the valleys where there was little to see but the rush of trees below and snow-spattered cliffs to either side. But the mountains were empty; King Valmeyan's dragons were ensconced around the Mirror Lakes, slowly eating their way through the speaker's cattle.

They reached the abyss of the Gnashing Snapper Gorge, where the immense mass of the Fury roared through the depths of the Worldspine. Hyrkallan tipped B'thannan's wings and they dived into it, down deep between black slabs of rock only a few dragon-spans apart. Jaslyn's ears popped and throbbed. The world became as dark as night as they fell and the air filled with spray and the thunder of rushing water. As Hyrkallan slowly levelled his descent and skimmed across the black waters, Jaslyn looked up. Far above her, the sky had gone so dark that she could see stars.

Slowly the gorge widened out. The river slowed and they passed the startled eyes of Hanzen's Camp, the last stop for even the most adventurous boats plying the Fury River. They stopped for a second night not far away on the edge of the Worldspine, a hundred miles east of Drotan's Top and then drifted up again with the dawn, veering a little eastwards but still flying south, out over the swathes of rolling green that were the Raksheh, the Thousand-Mile Forest, squeezed between the endless flat grey clouds above and the rolling green ones below. In the hills and plains to the faraway east, Zafir's eyries were almost empty, her dragons dispatched to the palace. Once, in the far distance, back towards the mountains they'd abandoned, they saw four other dragons flying north, high in the sky and deep among the peaks. Other than that, they saw no one. As the light failed they stopped again in the empty depths of the forest, at the ancient abandoned Moonlight Garden, looking out over the wild Yamuna River and at the Aardish caves where Vishmir the Great and, some said, the Silver King himself were laid to rest, Jaslyn stood there amid the blood-red marble stones veined with yellow and watched the moon rise. In a place like this, in this wilderness of lonely emptiness and the stone relics of a people who had died and gone long ago, she felt strangely at home. Outwatch was like this. Surrounded by desolation, old beyond measure, crafted by hands long dead with skills long forgotten. Enduring. Everlasting.

Unlike everything else.

She sighed and tried to sleep under the cool open skies of the south. The dreams that came to her were strange, always were in this place. Of men with white hair and silver skin and wide blood-red eyes. Of the Silver Kings.

They flew away again with the dawn, saddlesore and weary although the dragons who did all the work seemed untroubled by their long flight. South-east now, down the Yamuna River and out across the rolling deep green canopy of the Raksheh. As they took off it started to rain, low grey clouds rolling in off the Sea of Storms far away to the south. Rain. It was delicious. A novelty for those born to the desert realm of Sand and Stone.

They crossed the edge of the Raksheh, the dark sprawl of trees breaking up into a patchwork of fields and copses laced with a dark spider-web of muddy roads and spattered with hamlets and farmhouses. As they did, Jaslyn saw a single dragon far in the distance. She urged on Morning Sun until he was alongside B'thannan and signalled to Hyrkallan, but by then the other dragon had seen them and sped away. They flew on a little further, closing in on the grand eyrie of Clifftop. Jaslyn looked for a open space and brought Morning Sun as gently as she could to the ground, thundering into the side of a hill, slipping and stumbling, tearing gouges as deep as a man out of the thick damp earth. A flock of sheep scattered in panic in front of them. Jaslyn felt a sharp stab of desire from her dragon. Hunger. He hadn't eaten since Evenspire. When she told him no, he snorted and tossed his head, blew a column of flame a hundred feet up into the air, the rain around his face sizzling into steam.

Jaslyn sat, slowly getting wet. The air smelled of dragon and the rich dark soil. Without the wind in her ears, the world fell silent apart from the steady hiss of the rain. She sat and she waited, alone in the emptiness while Hyrkallan and his two outriders circled above to mark where she was. That was how it was done, when a stranger on a dragon entered a foreign realm. Like an animal rolling on its back, exposing its belly to show it meant no harm.

Eventually the dragon from Clifftop came back with others. One rider landed nearby, his dragon shaking and tearing the earth once again. The rest stayed in the air, circling. Jaslyn told him who she was and why she'd come. She had no idea who he was. She wasn't at all sure that he believed her either, but then maybe he did. Or maybe he'd seen her at Lystra's wedding. Maybe he'd been one of the dozen and more southern riders who'd gallantly asked for her hand at a dance only to be brushed away without even a smile. Climbing to the top of the hill and then hurling themselves down the side, the dragons raced and flapped their wings and ripped the earth with their claws once again until they launched themselves into the air, one after the other. She followed him towards Clifftop, trying not to think of what would be waiting when they got there. Ceremonies and greetings and all manner of tedious rituals to go through. All a waste of time. From Clifftop to the palace of Furymouth was most of a day on the back of a horse, longer in a carriage. She didn't have much time before she'd have to fly back, and every hour she spent at the eyrie was an hour away from Lystra.

Except it wasn't. At Clifftop Jaslyn let Morning Sun dive and then spread his wings and almost stop in the air before smashing into the ground, the way all dragons like to land. She threw off her harness and slid from the dragon's back and there was Lystra, little sister Lystra, right in front of her only a few dozen yards away. In the rain, Jaslyn had to blink a couple of times to be sure. Then she had to blink again. Tears this time. Protocols and rituals could go hang. She raced across the ground and grabbed her sister, almost lifting her off the ground. She remembered the smell of the air here. The smell of the sea, the distant sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs below.

'Lystra!' She still had to keep blinking.

'Jaslyn!' Lystra seemed reserved, returning her embrace with only a measure of joy. Jaslyn took a second to realise why.

'Ancestors! You're so big! When will it be? It can't be long! Look at you!' She put a hand on her sister's big round belly and smiled. The first smile since ... she couldn't remember. Since Lystra's wedding perhaps.

Lystra smiled too, the shy proud smile that Jaslyn remembered. The smile that made her heart melt, and perhaps Jehal's too. 'Another two months, they tell me.'

'So long? You look ready now!' The thought of Lystra as a mother had a bitterness to it. Almiri had already given Valgar three heirs. She was the last one. Lystra was all grown up, not little any more. But that sort of thinking wasn't helpful, wasn't why she'd come. 'Why are you here at Clifftop? You should be at the palace with everyone to look after you!' She stepped back. For the first time she realised that Lystra was clothed from head to foot in grey. 'You're in mourning! What's happened?' Someone was dead. Jehal? Her heart jumped with hope. Could it somehow be Jehal? Is he dead after all?

Lystra looked confused. 'You mean you don't know? How can you not know. Mother ...'

Oh. Yes. That. Jaslyn looked down at herself. Not a trace of grey. She'd almost... No. Not almost. She'd actually forgotten. For a few days she'd forgotten that her own mother had been executed. She'd tried to forget that horror along with everything else, and for once she'd actually managed it. Now she felt ashamed.

There were several men and women standing either side of Lystra. Jaslyn had ignored them totally until one of them coughed and smiled and stepped forward.

'Meteroa, Your Holiness.' The man bowed. Holiness. She still couldn't get used to people calling her that. 'I am King Jehal's eyrie-master and I am at your service. I do my best to advise Queen Lystra while he is away. Currently I have advised her to move away from the palace. The air here is cleaner. So is the water. And indeed the food, I have discovered.' He raised an eyebrow as if he meant to convey some complex meaning. Jaslyn had no idea what he was talking about. She should have worn grey. She should have worn grey if only for Lystra. I never liked our mother but I know you did. I always thought you were her favourite because you were the pretty one, but maybe it wasn't that. Maybe she liked you the best because you were the only one of us who liked her back. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

'Can you ...' She was still looking at Lystra. Could she what? Forgive her? For forgetting that their mother and their queen was dead? For being as coldly indifferent as the speaker?

'I'm sure Queen Lystra understands.' Meteroa smiled. 'You are almost at war with Speaker Zafir. There is little time for mourning. It is a luxury, I know. I assume that's why you're here.'

'I ...' Is that why I'm here? 'I wanted to see my sister again. In case it was the last time.' She cocked her head at Meteroa, desperate to talk about something else. I want to be alone with my sister. ALONE! 'Since you are here, Eyrie-Master, I have a question for you. Do you have dragons who refuse their food? Hatchlings who sicken and starve and die?'

Meteroa chuckled. 'All eyries have them, Your Holiness. Tarrangan's Curse, we call it here. Three dragons live, one dragon dies. So it's always been.'

'Do you have any of them here right now?'

'Hissing and snarling at the end of their chains in some deep cavern beneath our feet? You ask strange questions, Your Holiness.' Meteroa looked baffled. 'I have no idea why you ask me this, but no, at present we do not. Why? Why do you wish to know? If I have your permission to ask, Your Holiness?'

'No.' Jaslyn shook her head, all interest suddenly gone. 'No, you don't.' She shivered. 'May we go?'

Meteroa bowed. 'Of course, Your Holiness.' He led them towards the cliff-top towers and in among the sprawling walls. 'The King of the Crags is returning to his mountains, I hear. It is curious, Your Holiness. Why would he emerge from the Worldspine for this when he doesn't even come for the crowning of a new speaker? I cannot help but wonder about that. Valmeyan has more dragons than any two kings or queens put together. It is something of a quandary. Can you enlighten me, Your Holiness?'

Jaslyn thought she sensed the faintest hint of mockery in Meteroa's voice. She bristled. 'No. I'm sure Prince Jehal will know the answer.'

'King Jehal,' purred Meteroa. 'King Tyan died five weeks ago.'

Five weeks? Why didn't I know this? Jaslyn turned to Lystra. 'Then if Jehal dies, you're queen!' She could slap herself. She must sound like an idiot. Meteroa had been calling Lystra his queen ever since they'd arrived. What's the matter with me?

Lystra was staring at faslyn. Her eyes were very big and glistening with tears  All of a sudden she stepped closer and embraced Jaslyn again. 'I know you think the worst of him,' she whispered, 'but he has the heart of a good man, not a wicked one. All the things they say about him, they aren't true. I know. I see him in a way no one else does. Don't wish him dead, Jaslyn, please.'

Jaslyn froze. A shiver ran through her. She held Lystra tight. 'You've changed,' she whispered. She couldn't think of anything else. There. That was every question I had, answered in a stroke. Now I might as well go home.

Lystra straightened and stepped away. 'Jehal tried to save Mother from Zafir's headsman. That's why he was imprisoned.'

'Did he? Did he really?' Jaslyn couldn't bring herself to believe in Jehal. If he did, he had a selfish reason for it.

'He was trying to save the realms from a war, I think,' murmured Meteroa. 'Always a foolish pursuit.' He turned and grinned at Jaslyn. 'Since you're here, I suppose he must have failed.'

'I came to see my sister.' Go away!

Meteroa didn't go away. All through the dregs of the day he was constantly at Lystra's side. To protect her, he said, from all the little dangers that others don't see, although he wouldn't say what those dangers were, and Lystra had practically been born and bred in an eyrie. The next day was no better, although Meteroa at least took Jaslyn around Clifftop to present his dragons. Quite a collection, Jaslyn realised. Jehal didn't have as many as Isentine held at Outwatch, but such a variety! So many colours and shapes and sizes. Hunters and war-dragons of course, like every other eyrie, but some were ... something else. Smaller, too small even to be hunters. Then he led her into the caves etched into the cliffs, into tunnels and darkness where everything smelled of smoke and Jaslyn could barely hear what he was saying, where all his words were blotted out by memories of choking air and rushing water and the deadly tightness of the alchemists' redoubt. She could barely breathe. Cold sweat clung to her skin, gripping her, wrapping her in suffocating arms. Twice she stumbled and leaned on Lystra to keep herself from falling, and then finally a blast of fresh air and light thundered into her. They emerged into a gallery overlooking a yawning void. A hundred feet below, the sea crashed and roared over a tumble of black boulders that littered the cave mouth. Sunlight reached inside to light up the stone walls beyond, worn smooth by the waves. Further in lay a deep pool of still dark water. The air was fresh and salty.

'No use for dragons, this one,' said Meteroa, shouting to make himself heard over the noise of the spray. 'No easy way in and out. We use this cave for something else. The kings of Furymouth have always kept their collection here.'

Jaslyn took deep breaths, sucking the cool fresh air into her lungs, cleansing them of the memory of smoke. 'Collection?'

'Collection.' Meteroa pointed out into the emptiness of the cave. Slowly, as Jaslyn's eyes adjusted to the brightness of the sun pouring in off the sea, she saw that there were things suspended in the air. Bones. Blackened bones. Dragon bones. Whole dragon skeletons.

'Are they real?' She stood agape. Dragons burned when they died. Burned from the inside out so that nothing was left except their scales and their wings. Maybe a few charred bones from the end of their tail, but everything else went to ash. She'd never seen the skeleton of a dragon. No one had. Or at least that's what she'd thought until now. Now there were four of them in front of her. They were enormous.

Meteroa nodded, sounding solemn. 'Very real, Your Holiness.'

'How?'

He pointed down to the water below. 'The Salt Pool. The sea barely reaches into the cave, but the pool beneath us is deep. Sometimes when a dragon is dying we bring it here to the Salt Pool. We feed it the same poisons as the Embers took when they fought for you and the alchemists. When a dragon dies in the Salt Pool, the water is enough to save the bones. The salt ruins the scales though. We don't bring them here very often.' He pointed. 'The nearest is Awestriker. He was King Tyan's last mount. Prince Jehal had the dragon slain when it became clear that his father would never ride her any more. The furthest is Bludgeon. That was the first dragon to be brought to the Salt Pool. They say the first king of Furymouth, the blood-mage Tyan from whom King Jehal's father took his name, came here. There had been a battle. This was long before Narammed and Vishmir and the rise of the speakers. The Order of the Dragon had risen up in the Silver City and ousted the blood-mages from the Pinnacles. The battle was lost, the magus' dragon was damaged and he did not want it to fall into the hands of the Order. He brought the dragon here to hide it. The dragon died. Later, when the Order came and Tyan fled, they sent soldiers to the cave to bring back the scales. The scales were ruined, but they found the bones instead. For days no one understood where the bones had come from. Sea monsters, they said. Eventually they realised the bones came from Tyan's dragon.' Meteroa smiled. 'Of course, that was long before there was an eyrie at Clifftop. Come. There's more.'

He walked along a narrow ledge carved into the sheer side of the cave. Jaslyn followed nervously. Lystra stayed where she was. The ledge was rough, a foot wide or sometimes less, and the Salt Pool was far below. Small niches had been cut into the wall, tenuous handholds to offer an illusion of safety. Meteroa moved carefully and methodically. 'The menagerie may interest you, Your Holiness, if you have an interest in dragons.'

The ledge ran for some fifty feet before it opened out into a wide natural gallery. There were more skeletons here, much smaller than the monsters hanging over the bulk of the cave. These were hatchlings, so small they must have been fresh out of the egg.

'We've been breeding them like this since the realms begun, Your Holiness.' Meteroa smiled again. 'Not many of our visitors are privileged to come down here but I know this isn't wasted on you. And you are our king's sister now. The interesting ones are back here.'

One of the hatchlings had two heads.

Jaslyn stared at them in disbelief. Half of them were deformed. Two heads, two tails, four wings ...

'Blood-magic,' said Meteroa with a curl of disgust, although whether he meant it or it was feigned Jaslyn couldn't tell. 'A few of our kings have had a taste for it. They were set on breeding a new kind of dragon. This is what they got. They never had any success. Fortunately the local penchant for blood-mages has died away. We work with the alchemists now, using potions to try and evolve the breeds.'

'You want to breed a dragon with two heads?' Jaslyn couldn't contain her disbelief. Meteroa laughed.

'No. It's all about the colour of the scales, the timbre of their sheen, that sort of thing. That's why Jehal so wanted your white dragon.

A new strain, a new bloodline, perhaps we could have done something different. You breed your dragons for speed and strength; we're known through the realms for the most colourful dragons.' He chuckled again. 'In different times, an alliance between our realms would have been a happy time for me. I would have spent a great deal of time in your eyrie and you in mine. We could have traded secrets, eyrie-master to eyrie-master. We could have traded bloodlines. I had high hopes for what our eyries might produce if they worked together. Who knows - maybe those dreams are not quite lost?' He talked on and on and Jaslyn soaked up every word. Meteroa knew what he was doing and he knew his dragons. She got lost in them and almost forgot why she was there. Other things slipped in. Jehal's imprisonment, his injury, his recovery. The poisons Meteroa had found in the kitchens. The sabotage to the saddles of Lystra's horses. A dozen other ambiguous little clues, all of them pointing to Zafir. Evil, wicked Zafir.

'King Jehal was so sure he would keep her in check. I'm afraid he rather seems to have failed.' Meteroa sighed. 'Queen Lystra lives at Clifftop now because it's safer. I trust the alchemists and the Scales here more than my own riders and certainly more than the servants in the palace. I had thought we knew all of Zafir's secrets, but I'm afraid we rather failed there too. It's all quite depressing. Come, Your Holiness. We've left your sister for long enough. If we delay any further she may have one of her foolish moments and try to follow us.'

The eyrie-master retraced his steps. Jaslyn followed, easing her way uncertainly along the ledge. When they returned, Lystra was sitting on the edge with her feet dangling over the Salt Pool, tossing stones down into the water. She glared at them both.

'Meteroa, you've taken my sister away for far too long and I'm immensely bored. I am cross with you.'

Meteroa bowed. 'I am deeply sorry, Your Holiness. To make amends, I shall arrange a great entertainment for you. I shall leave at once. I trust you will be safe in the care of your sister.' He turned to Jaslyn and his face became serious. 'There are men I trust not far away. You will be left alone. If you are not, you should assume that whoever approaches von means you harm. You are armed?'

Jaslyn nodded.

'Good. I suppose, apart from myself, you're the one person I will leave alone with my queen until my king returns.' He suddenly looked weary and shook his head. 'It has been a regrettably interesting few weeks. I will not be far away.'

With that he turned and walked slowly away into the tunnels. Jaslyn stood alone with her sister, staring out into the cave, breathing the damp salt air. For a long time they were silent. Then Lystra held out a hand and Jaslyn took it.

'There's another path,' said Lystra in a whisper. 'You can climb down to the cave mouth. Then there are steps carved into the cliff to take you back to the top. It's very steep and very slippery and you'd like it. Shall we?'

'No.' Jaslyn squeezed her sister's hand, then crouched down and put her ear to Lystra's belly. Lystra began to stroke her hair. 'Two more months. And they won't let you fly?'

'Meteroa doesn't want me to fly.'

'But he has to do what you say.'

'No, he has to do what Jehal says.'

Jaslyn put a hand next to her ear. 'I can feel the baby! It's moving.'

'Yes.' Lystra hugged Jaslyn's head. 'Isn't it magic?'

'On the back of a dragon is the safest place in the world,' whispered Jaslyn. 'Why won't they let you fly?' She stood up and held Lystra tightly. Why won't they let you fly?'

Lystra laughed softly. 'Why won't you climb the cliff with me?'

'You might fall.'

'Yes. I might fall.' She pulled away and held Jaslyn's hands. She was still smiling. 'I can't be the Lystra you remember. I have to be a queen now. Soon I will have to be a mother.'

'The speaker is trying to kill you.'

'Jehal will keep me safe.' She spoke with conviction. Love even. Jaslyn winced. The hurt was like a knife.

'Come back to Outwatch with me.' Her voice was trembling. 'We'll slip away in the night when he's not watching you. Speaker Zafir won't know where you've gone. You'll be safe.'

Lystra squeezed Jaslyn's hands. 'Of course she'll know where I've gone. No, Jaslyn. A part of my heart is always yours, but my place is here.'

'Lystra! Sister!' How to make her understand that Jehal was a monster. That he was vicious, that he was a murderer, that he had no love for anyone but himself, that as likely as not he was Zafir's lover. The very woman who's trying to murder you. He doesn't care about you. You're nothing to him. Just something to be veiled behind screens, making babies and heirs until he tires of you. He'll take what he wants, bleed you dry and crush you. Like Aliphera. Like Hyram. Like Mother.

She wanted to say all of those things, but the words stuck in her throat. She saw Lystra's wide eyes and knew she couldn't wound her sister with them. That even if she did Lystra wouldn't believe her. That Jehal, for now, had won. The understanding made her weep, despite herself.

'You don't belong to us any more, do you?' she croaked.

They held each other tight, and then Lystra kissed her. A long, lingering kiss. The sort meant for lovers. 'I will always be your sister, Jaslyn. Promise me we will never be enemies.'

Jaslyn bit her lip and nodded. 'Never. I promise. Promise me you will stay safe.'

'I will.'

'I miss you, little Lystra. I will never, never let anyone hurt you.'

'I know. I miss you too.'

For a long time they stood together, holding hands. Jaslyn wept in silence. Eventually she turned and led Lystra back into the tunnels, back to the eyrie-master's men. Then she left the tunnels, summoned her riders and her dragons and put Clifftop behind her as quickly as she could.

Meteroa watched her go, soaring away into the afternoon skies. 'How very sudden and very rude.' He sniffed and gave his queen a queer look. 'What did you say to her?'

'Nothing. Nothing that she didn't know before she came here.' Her voice was flat and gave nothing away. Inside, Meteroa smiled. Very good, little one. Very good.

She was looking at him, he realised. She cocked her head. 'Why did you lie to her about the halchlings?'

Meteroa shrugged. Did I lie? I don't even remember. He grimaced.

'I apologise if this offends you, Your Holiness. Doubtless I shouldn't say such things about another queen, but your sister is very strange. Hatchlings. What a question to ask.' Now he laughed. You know, I can't remember the last time someone asked me a question and I hadn't the first idea why they were asking it.' 'But why did you lie?'

Meteroa smiled. Because I didn't like not knowing why she asked. Because I didn't like the way she looked at me. Because I think she's dangerous in a way that even Jehal wouldn't understand.

He couldn't say any of that though, not to his queen, so he settled for something else that was equally true. 'Because I'm not a particularly nice fellow, Your Holiness. I've made a career of it. Sometimes I lie simply because I feel like it. Because I can. Keeping my eye in, so to speak.'

He winked, but Queen Lystra didn't see. She was looking back to the sky, watching her sister fade into the clouds.

 

 

32

 

The Hunters and the Hunted

 

 

Snow was soaring high when the riders came out of the Worldspine, just as Kemir knew they would. Five dragons, all fast-flying war-dragons, each with two riders. They were wary, flying in a loose diamond formation, one low and close to the ground, another up high, above the little puffs of cloud that hung in the air, and then one to each side and the last dragon hanging back. Kemir didn't know too much about flying dragons, but he knew that riders looking for a fight flew close together where they could quickly support each other. These ones were expecting the sort of trouble that would make them turn and run. In hindsight, that should have been a warning.

As if it would have made any difference. There was probably a right way to attack the diamond. Kemir had no idea what Prince Lai's Principles had to say, but if he had had to guess, he'd have said go for the one at the back. Snow, however, had never heard of Prince Lai. She simply climbed higher, then tucked in her wings and dived out of the sun, smashing into the dragon at the top of the diamond. The impact would have hurled Kemir far into the air if it hadn't been for his harness; as it was, the straps nearly tore him in half and he slammed forward, breaking his nose on Snow's back. The two dragons curled around each other, plummeting out of the sky together. Kemir didn't see what happened to the riders, but they must have been in the middle when the two dragons collided — probably now nothing more than a big bloody smear with bits of armour sticking out.

For a moment everything vanished into a white mist as they fell through a cloud. By the time they emerged, the dragons were apart. Snow had something dangling out of her mouth. She shook her head and it flew off through the air, leaving a streak of fine red mist to dissolve in the wind.

'Ow! Damn you, dragon, you nearly killed me!' He held on to her, arms spread wide, white-knuckled fingers locked around her scales. The other dragon was diving for the ground now and Snow wasn't far behind. He could see the ribbon of the river and the town that Snow had burned, a slight dirty haze that still hung over it.

There. One free. Four to go. She didn't slow down, but arrowed on towards the next dragon, wings folded back, wind howling around her.

'Alive! Take a rider alive!' bellowed Kemir, as if anyone could hear a thing at such a speed. He screwed up his face and tried without much success to shield his eyes with his hand. 'Can't you ever control yourself?'

Why?

'Useful food, remember.' How is it useful?

The riders on the next dragon had seen Snow coming now. She was flying too fast for them to get out of the way, but they'd turned their scorpion to fire at her.

No, not at her, at her rider. At him. Kemir threw himself flat. A few moments later he felt a pinch of pain from Snow as the scorpion bolt hit her. He had no idea where. Didn't care much either. It hadn't struck him, that was what mattered. You could probably shoot a hundred scorpions into a dragon without doing much more than make it very cross.

No! The dragon's fury slammed into him like a hammer and Kemir roared with anger without really knowing why. He clenched his fists and would have sat up straight in Snow's saddle, except as soon as he moved the wind almost ripped him off her back. Then Snow hit the other dragon like a thirty-ton battering ram. He was thrown up into the air, the harness almost tearing his legs off this time as both dragons lurched sideways. The other dragon was twisting to present itself as all claws and teeth, but it wasn't fast enough. Snow snapped at it with her teeth, raked it with her claws and lashed it with her tail. The teeth got one dragon-knight, the claws got the second. Kemir wasn't sure what the tail did because he was too busy ducking as the other dragon's tail snaked around Snow's neck and sliced the air where his head should have been. Rage filled him. Dragon-rage.

Poison, Kemir. Their bolts are poisoned!

Thoughts jumbled on top of each other, some that were his, some that were not. That if they were shooting scorpions with dragon-poison on them, they weren't shooting at him. That Snow ought to flee now, back to the lake. Back to the glaciers, if she could make it. That he didn't care, that she should stay and kill and kill and then run for the glaciers. How many poisoned bolts would it take to bring a dragon down? One? Ten? A hundred?

The one between my teeth still has thoughts. They are not useful thoughts, Kemir. I want to eat him.

'Do you know he's not poisoned too?'

Snow shuddered. She spat the knight out of her mouth. He sailed away through the air with a forlorn cry and fell out of sight. 'Alive!' screamed Kemir. 'Take one alive!'

Why? Snow turned, throwing Kemir sideways. They were getting close to the ground now. If Kemir hadn't had about a hundred more pressing things to do, he could have counted the trees and the animals in the fields beneath them.

The dragon's fury coursed through him.'So we can ask him questions!' So I can kill him myself. 'About dragon-poison and scorpions.' So I can feed him his own entrails while he's still alive. 'About how many times they think they need to hit you!' So I can crush his skull with my bare hands.

The last three dragons were closing now that Snow no longer had height and speed to her advantage. They were trying to position themselves around her, to trap her. A scorpion bolt fizzed through the air past Snow's head. Another punched straight through the thin skin of her wing.

'Go go go! Now!' Kemir urged. The curtain of the dragon-rage was lifting at the edges. Behind it, his own feelings began creeping through. Fear. Alarm. A certain uneasy dread. 'They've fired. Take them before they can load another bolt!'

Snow veered, twisted and powered towards the nearest dragon, her whole body shuddering as her wings ripped the air. The straps of the dragon-rider harness groaned and Kemir felt something at the bottom of his spine pop and creak. Snow closed the gap, but not enough before the other dragon turned and pulled away. A scorpion bolt from above bounced of Snows nose. She shrieked in frustration, turned sharply and launched a futile charge at another of the dragons. That one danced away too. The riders knew what they were doing. Kemir could just about see that now. They'd be happy to keep their distance and pepper Snow with their poisoned scorpions for as long as it took to wear her down. He clung on, gritting his teeth as Snow pivoted and whirled back and forth. Her wings strained, her seething tail slashing the air, but each dragon she chased only powered away while the other two closed and took their shots.

'That's what you get for being stupid,' muttered Kemir. He could still feel the fury, smouldering waves of it pulsing out of Snow like a bad hangover, but he was its master now.

Stupid, Kemir? When I fall out of the sky, I shall be sure to land on my back!

'Stupid because you landed in the middle of a town and burned half of it to the ground. Stupid because hundreds of people saw a riderless white dragon. Stupid because you never stop to think-You just smash and burn and eat people.' He flinched as another scorpion bolt split the air nearby. Snow was climbing again, hauling herself steeply up towards the little scattered clouds, but Kemir could see straight away that they were too small and too few to offer any cover. Why am I shouting? Because it makes me feel better, that's why. 'What did you expect? Did you think they were going to come out here after you and form up in an orderly line to be eaten?' Wind tore past Kemir's face, almost pulling his words out of his mouth. He could barely open his eyes. Proper riders had riding helmets with special visors for this sort of thing. He pushed himself forward into Snow's scales again. In the end, he was helpless up here.

Her scales were hot.

Your thoughts are a distraction, Kemir. They are not helpful.

'My thoughts are a distraction? Well, why don't you just land and let me off then? Then you can blunder about on your own. It's not like you listen to me anyway and then I won't have to worry about being shot at by giant arrows any more!'

Kemir!

'Hey, you know what? Next time you burn a town you could jump inside their heads and ask them to bring some nice tasty donkeys when they come back to hunt you. They're not stupid, Snow.' In fact so far they've been cleverer than you. He tried to think the last thought quietly. Not quietly enough, Kemir.

Valmeyan's dragons were faster than Snow. She wasn't quite fully grown. Maybe that was why, or maybe the mountain men simply had better dragons, war-dragons, stronger and faster and more enduring. Snow had five bolts in her now and more would come. Sooner or later they'd get enough poison in her to bite and she and Kemir both knew it. She reached the level of the clouds and wove through and in between them. The other dragons settled in around her, patiently awaiting their chances.

I must go back to the mountains. To the lakes.

Into a cloud. Everything white. Turn. Out again into the sunlight.

Kemir could see exactly where that would lead. Snow meant to hide under the water again. 'And what do I do?' The other dragons might be able to follow her but their riders couldn't. They'd wait for her until she came out again. And, in the meantime, they'll amuse themselves chasing after me. Three of them on dragons and me on foot. I'd be better off staying with Snow and hoping to discover a miraculous talent for breathing water. 'They won't give up,' he shouted. 'They'll stay with you for as long as it takes. Sooner or later you'll have to come out to eat. They'd be waiting for you.' There. He could even believe that might be true.

Next cloud. Sharp turn. Back into the light. Sprint after one of the other dragons. No good. Turn again.

And you suggest? She was powering through the air with all her strength, sprinting, turning, keeping the other dragons at bay for now. It couldn't last. Kemir was pressed flat against her scales and could already feel her becoming uncomfortably warm even through his furs. Her thoughts were distinctly irritable. He could see them. She was wondering whether she'd fly faster without Kemir on her back.

Another cloud. Another turn. Into the light. Straight into another scorpion.

'Get them away from their eyries. They need their potions. They can't follow you if you take them away from their eyries.'

And where are their eyries, Kemir?

'In the mountains.' Which was certainly true. But for all he knew, there might be eyries all over the place. He'd never been this side of the Worldspine. Hadn't even known it existed.

Then your advice is flawed, little one. I prefer the lakes. Snow turned sharply in the next cloud, arrowing back at the three dragons in pursuit. Kemir wasn't sure whether it was her patience or her strength that had gone first. The other dragons scattered. She spat fire at the nearest, then pinwheeled and powered towards the distant peaks, climbing higher, putting the clouds below her. Another scorpion bolt buried itself in her flank. Kemir felt the flash of pain and anger. A second one sailed over his head. There was something in Snow's thoughts that he'd never seen before, something that didn't belong. Desperation.

'The sea!' he burst out. 'Go to the sea!'

The sea? There was a pause. Where is the sea?

Kemir tried to form a map of the realms in his mind. 'Somewhere south.'

Why is the sea better than a lake that is smaller but closer?

'Because it's called the Endless Sea for a reason. Because there aren't any eyries. You can fly and keep on going and they'll have to give up and go home, and when they come back they'll never be able to find you.' And you can float on the surface and I can stay on your back and no one needs to drown or be taken by the dragon-riders.

It is far away, is it not, Kemir? Very far.

That was probably true. He didn't know where they were any more. 'I don't know.' He glanced over his shoulder, looking for the pursuit. Snow was leaving a trail of smoke in the air behind her. No, not smoke, steam. When he touched the scales of her back with his bare skin, he yelped. They were hot, painfully hot. Days, probably.

I do not know if I can fly for days at this speed.

'You flew that far when we crossed the Worldspine.' Not at this speed though.

Nor was I poisoned.

Self-pity? Kemir felt his anger return, and this time it was all his own. 'No, but you weren't so fat with people you weren't supposed to eat either. You brought this on yourself. Now you can get out of it.'

They challenged me, Kemir. Two more scorpion bolts flew past Snow in quick succession. A third glanced off her scales. She turned again, changing course to fly parallel to the Worldspine. Kemir tried to work out whether they were going the right way. 'The last time we flew towards the sea, we kept the mountains on the right.' Snow had turned so they were on her left.

Yes, Kemir. And we have crossed the mountains now.

He tried to work out whether that made a difference. He didn't get very far before Snow suddenly dropped out of the sky and plunged towards the ground. Kemir screamed, partly in surprise, partly from real fear that Snow had suddenly succumbed to the poisoned bolts.

I do not feel the poison yet, Kemir. Her thoughts were tinged with amusement. If it is to be the sea then I must fly low to weave among the hills. The dragons that follow us are fully grown. They are stronger and faster than me, but I am more agile. We must use that to our advantage.

We. Snow had never said we before. Despite everything, despite the burned town, despite even Nadira, a warm glow bloomed in the pit of Kemir's stomach. We. It might have been his breakfast trying to escape as Snow pitched into free fall. Or it might have been pride.

 

 

33

 

The Fortunes of War

 

 

Luck.

Prince Sakabian couldn't believe what he was seeing. He hadn't expected to find them. He was high up on the edge of the Purple Spur, cruising along the edge of the Great Cliff with the jagged peaks of the Spur to one side and the great grey emptiness of the Plains of Ancestors far, far below on the other. He hadn't expected any trouble at all. And yet there they were, far off and high over the desert plains. Eight of them. Six hunters and two war-dragons. The air was so clear and dry that even from this distance he could make out what they were. He looked over his right shoulder. Twenty-five war-dragons filled the air behind him, stretched out in a line. On their backs were nearly a hundred dragon-knights. They had scorpions and fire-bombs. Enough to start a war. The Red Riders were supposed to be far away, deep in the Worldspine harassing Valmeyan. Sakabian was in the wrong place and everyone knew it. He was here to watch the northern edges of the Spur, keeping an eye on the speaker's borders and the alchemists' precious convoys travelling along the Evenspire Road.

And yet there they were. Eight dragons, mostly hunters. They hadn't come from Evenspire and that only left one thing. The Red Riders weren't in the Worldspine after all. They were here.

Luck.

That's what Knight-Marshal Aktark would say. That's what everyone would say. No matter that the Red Riders had struck here before. No matter that another dozen wagons from the secret mountain strongholds of the alchemists were on their way. Luck, they would say. No one would give him the credit. No one would praise his astute tactical acumen, his precise prediction of where the Red Riders would strike again. They would just say it was luck.

So be it. The queen - he still couldn't help but think of her as his queen, even now — the queen would see a victory. He doubted she would care how it was won.

The queen. Even thinking about her made him stir. Aunt Zafir. He could hardly hear her name without thinking of her naked. Without seeing her in his mind, slowly slipping out of the darkness and into his bed, arching her back as he spread her legs. Unwed. Her lover crippled and a traitor. You could see the hunger in her. She was ripe, ripe to be ploughed by any prince who brought her a victory, especially a prince of her own blood. He let that thought spur him on even as a new possibility presented itself. Back home in the Pinnacles, his father and Queen Zafir's sister were already manoeuvring against each other to take her crown. The family was tearing itself in half again. He could stop that. Yes. Perhaps a victory here could win him a crown as well. He'd be quite happy enough to help himself to Zafir's little sister and share a throne with her as long as he got a taste of the bigger sister too ... The two sides of the family united again. A new lover, one safe and bound by blood. Two birds killed with a single stone. Yes ...

He wrenched his thoughts away from the taste of Zafir's skin on his tongue. The battle had to be won first. There was little point trying to hide his approach. They were in open skies and clear air and if the other riders hadn't seen him already, they certainly would as soon as he broke away from the cover of the Great Cliff. It would be a chase. In a chase, a war-dragon always beat a hunter. The six hunters might as well give up now. At worst, if he was blisteringly stupid, the two war-dragons might get away; but that would still give him the first and the biggest victory that Zafir had seen for a long time. He would take it to her and bow, and her eyes would sparkle at the understanding of his lust.

Ripe to be ploughed. He shifted in his saddle, trying to get comfortable.

The dragon beneath him surged through the air and shrieked, echoing the desire in his thoughts. Behind him his riders fell into formation, fanning out to the left and the right, above and below, with Sakabian at the point.

Like a spear to be plunged into my enemy's heart. The Red Riders had seen him. Their hunters were fleeing, losing height and pulling away for now, but he didn't let that worry him. Deep in the mountains they might have found a place to hide, but here in the barrens there was nothing. No cliffs, no canyons, no crevasses, no great rivers, no titanic forests. A sheer wall almost a mile high marked the start of the deep mountains and they were far too low to find an escape route there. The Silver River valley was half a day of flying away. No, there was nothing for them. He had half a mile of height over them, and height could become speed whenever he wanted. They were doomed. The only shelter was in the Spur, and Sakabian was in the way. Their cries echoed through the air. They might as well have been cries of despair.

A part of him hoped they'd fly north. That was worth a try. They could make a dash for Evenspire and the shelter of the treacherous Queen Almiri and her riders. For the hunters that was hopeless. Evenspire was simply too far away. They would never reach it before Sakabian was on them. For the two war-dragons, though, if they were strong ...

And if they do then I will take their hunters and I will follow them to Almiri's eyrie, and I will loose my scorpions and rain down my bombs, for then there will be no doubt that we are at war ... That was what the speaker wanted. An excuse. Anyone could see it. Yes, I could give her that too.

But they did the more obvious thing. They turned west and sprinted for the Silver River and the Worldspine from which it came. Sakabian changed his course, trying to be patient, knowing that the dragons were ultimately his. Their only real hope was to reach the mountains, so he kept in their way, blocking them off, drifting away from the Great Cliff as he herded them further north and west, slowly trading his own height for the distance between them. Eventually the hunters would tire and then even the mountains would be useless to them. Then he would take them.

If I haven't taken them already.

They danced together, Sakabian and his twenty-five against eight, wearing them down until everything was perfectly poised and the inevitable outcome was assured.

He never even saw the other dragons. They must have been lurking beyond the sheer walls of the Spur. They came from behind and from high above, and with such speed and in such numbers that half his riders were dead before he even knew he was under threat. One instant he was sizing up the moment, readying himself to commit to the attack. The next his mount was streaking down, while the air filled with shrieks and fire and howling wind. Dragons smashed together around him. Riders were crushed between them or else ripped from their saddles and tossed away to plunge the half-mile to the ground below. Half a man sailed past Sakabian's head, fragments of armour spinning lazily around him. Sometimes, when men and saddles were torn apart, it wasn't leather and metal that gave way but flesh and bone, and Zafir's harnesses were the finest.

With no idea how he was alive, he slowed his precipitous dive, signalling for a fighting retreat, but there was no one to rally. Dragons wheeled everywhere. Only six of his remained and they were scattering and badly outnumbered. He couldn't count how many dragons had attacked him. Dozens. They were all over the place now, most of them hunting down his own, some of them still circling above. Doing to him exactly what he'd been planning to do to the Red Riders.

He saw the hunters too, the ones he'd thought would be his. From underneath, the colours painted on their bellies and their tails cried of Evenspire. Of Almiri the traitor queen. They weren't the Red Riders after all. Almiri had lured him into a trap. He felt a surge of something. Of awe perhaps. This meant war, open bloody war. At least half the dragons of Evenspire were here, killing his men.

A rider never abandoned his dragon. That was the rule. Never, never, never. A rider always fought to the death rather than lose his mount because, in the end, dragons were more precious. Every prince knew that. And since when dragon-knights fought they fought in the air, in heavy harnesses and armour, it all seemed rather inevitable. But I am a prince! Dying hardly seemed fair. He was young, strong, virile. He didn't deserve to die. An hour earlier, in his mind at least, he'd almost become both a king and a lover.

Almiri's riders were around him now, slowly closing in, keeping their distance but forcing him towards the ground. Three still circled above, waiting lor him to flee. They were high enough, he judged. High enough to turn their height into speed and be sure to catch him no matter where he went.

Ancestors! Were they offering quarter?

Yes, he realised, that's exactly what they were doing. And why should he go down fighting? The end would be exactly the same, after all. Except if he fought, he would be dead.

And if I'm taken ? Almiri will crow and Zafir will seethe. My brothers will pay the price for our humiliation. My father will pay my ransom and will never sit on the throne of the Pinnacles, and I will be sent into exile. The queen will spit in my face — if she can even bring herself to look at me. No. My life will be finished.

Except...

He plunged down, straight to the ground, tearing open the buckles on his harness as they fell. No cover for dragons among the stones and the dust and the thorn bushes but plenty enough for a man. As soon as he reached the ground, he slid down off the dragon's back and shouted at it to move away. Then he ran for the nearest shred of cover, covered himself in his dragon-scale as best he could and prayed.

Let me survive. Let me take the word back to my queen. Let her know from my lips of the traitor queen's outrage. Perhaps Zafir would give him dragons again, more dragons. Perhaps she'd let him burn Evenspire to ash. Perhaps she might be seduced by his bravery.

They burned him. More than once they caught him with their fire, but they never quite seemed to see him and his armour held off the flames. Luck. Sixty dragons and their riders and he'd escaped them! When the sun began to set and they finally flew away, all he felt was relief and a great deal of pain. He didn't care any more whether Zafir ever spoke to him again. He was alive, that was all. For a brief few hours he saw himself for what he was. A fool.

But not for long. He walked through the night until he was half dead from pain and exhaustion. His left his armour behind him, and then everything but his sword, and then even that, so that when he found his way to the Evenspire Road, he was reduced to common thievery. Still, he could barely contain himself. He slept in the day in what shade he could find until the wagons he'd come out here to protect rolled past. What was left of them, for Almiri's riders had already caught them and very politely stripped them of everything the alchemists carried. They gave him what he needed — water, food and a horse — and he was on his way, racing ahead of them.

It took him another four days to reach the Adamantine Palace. By then he'd traded his horse for a thoroughbred. He'd survived. He would be the one to tell the queen about Almiri's wickedness and give her the excuse for the war that she so clearly craved. He would be a hero. He would bring her victory, of a sort. And she would be grateful. Oh so grateful.

In the palace he dressed himself as a prince once more. He insisted on an audience with the speaker and he told her how he'd been surrounded on three sides by Almiri and the Red Riders. He spoke of how valiantly his men had fought and how many of the enemy had been slain. Of how he'd been ripped from his own mount as they'd skimmed the ground. Of how he'd been burned and left for dead and yet, by some miracle, had survived his fall. In broken whispers he told of how they'd hunted him for three days before he'd made his escape. He could see the glee in the speaker's face when he told her of Evenspire's treachery, the sparkle in her eyes, the burning heat of desire. He saw the slight hint of a smile, the licking of her lips as she sent him away with words full of promise and hints of reward.

It came that night. The Night Watchman brought it to him with a pair of heavy hammers. They smashed his ankles and his wrists and then broke his spine and cut out his tongue. Then they put him in a cage and hung him next to Shezira's rotting remains to die slowly in the sun. Speaker Zafir watched them hoist him up. She spat on the ground beneath him and then left. She didn't even say anything.

Luck.

 

 

34

 

All at Sea

 

 

The test, Kemir discovered, was not between the dragons to see who could stay in the air the longest. The test was between the riders. The test was to see who didn't mind pissing and shitting in their breeches, who didn't mind sleeping on the wing, who didn't mind not eating or drinking for day after day. The test was who could put up with more pain.

On even terms, Kemir could have lived with that. Dragon-riders were perfumed and pampered and had servants to do all their work for them. Outsiders, on the other hand, were as tough as nails, or at least that was how Kemir saw the world. Dragon-riders cried like babies if they got hungry. Outsiders didn't even think about going a few days without food. That was simply the way life was when you tried to live off the land in the mountains. He would be hungry and thirsty and stiff and sore, but nothing worse than he'd suffered a dozen times before and certainly nowhere near as bad as crossing the Worldspine had been. The dragon saddles were comfortable enough, designed for long days of flight. He even managed to doze on Snow's back in the freezing wind of their passage through the afternoon. When he woke up though, Valmeyan's riders were still there. It occurred to him then that they'd come prepared. That they probably had water and food for days of flight, and that he didn't.

Do not trouble yourself, Kemir. They pit their endurance against mine. They cannot win.

'Yes.' His head was already aching from the constant cold wind and a growing thirst and it was only going to get worse. His nose throbbed, but the wind was the worst, a relentless battering gale as the dragons raced for hour after hour, skimming the ground, zig-ging and zagging between hills and through valleys. Their pursuers took it in turns to follow Snow while one of them always stayed high, watching so that she could never slip away. Despite the wind, Kemir was sweating. Snow's scales were too hot to touch.

As the sun sank lower and the clouds on the horizon began to look like bruises, Valmeyan's riders closed in on Snow for one last charge, harrying her even closer to the ground with their scorpions. Kemir watched lakes and rivers and trees and empty meadows flash past beneath beneath them, sotlose that Snow's tail sometimes threw up clouds of spray or earth.

'Land!' he told her. 'Find a cave or something like that where they can't shoot at you and land.'

I do not see any vast and gaping caves, Kemir, but I do see lakes. Plenty of lakes.

'Caves are better.'

Snow didn't answer. She headed further towards the mountains and wove back and forth around a forest of craggy hills, ducking between bluffs, diving in and out of narrow valleys, switching back and launching an attack or two of her own, although she never got close enough to snatch a rider. Finally, as twilight fell, the other dragons dropped back and stopped firing their scorpions, either because they'd run out of bolts or because they didn't trust their eyes in the gloom. Snow resumed her course towards the sea; the others followed more discreetly now, a mile or two away, slowly vanishing into the darkening sky.

'You can lose them in darkness, can't you?' he shouted hopefully. He bounced up and down, trying to fight off the stiffness threatening to seize hold of his lower back. The pain in his head was getting to be unbearable. He felt sick, physically sick. Please say yes. I don't have the strength for this any more. Not again. Not after the Worldspine.

The dragons will sense where I am.

'How can they see you if it's dark?'

I did not say see, I said sense. They will feel the presence of my thoughts. Escape is not likely. Snow started to climb. We do not like to fly in the dark. Perhaps the other dragons will refuse to continue.

Kemir hunched over Snow's back, trying to sleep. His head was thumping and his tongue was starting to stick to the back of his throat. 'I need water, Snow. I think I'm going to die,' he whis-pered, but the dragon didn't seem to hear him and he fell back to dozing. As the full dark of night began to fall, Snow flew lower. She changed her course and started to follow a river that snaked along a valley filled with pines.

Kemir jerked awake. Snow's thoughts had changed. They felt bright and sharp and full of victory. The dragons may sense where I am, but their riders will not. Ready yourself.

'Ready myself for what,' slurred Kemir.

To jump.

'What?'

You are getting off. There is water here to drink. You may find food. You will sleep and be refreshed. In the morning I will find you and we will fly to the sea together.

'What about the other dragons?'

They will come for me, not for you. In the darkness their riders will not be able to use their weapons against me. For a while I shall hunt them. If I succeed, they will be gone by dawn.

She slowed, dropping lower and lower until she was skidding across the surface of the river, wings flapping furiously, sending great waves across the water, flying as slowly as a dragon could fly without simply falling out of the air. Jump! Now!

Undoing the saddle took five times longer than it should have done and then Kemir was falling, rolling over Snow's scales, bouncing off her shoulder, tumbling, splashing into the water. The cold river shocked him awake, but he barely had time to get his bearings before Snow powered away and the wind from her wings grabbed his head and pushed him under the water. He came up spluttering, thrashing his arms and legs wildly. Half a lifetime ago he'd learned to swim so that he could dive for lake stones to trade. He was exhausted though. His boots and his sword belt were dragging him back down. He managed to ditch the belt, but the boots were another matter and he was loath to throw away either of the dragon-bone bows. And then there was the armour. I should have thought about this before Snow threw me off...

And then, to his surprise, his feet were on the bottom. He was standing up and the river water only reached to his shoulders. He struck for the shore. The water was icy, soaking through his riding clothes as though they weren't there, making him bulky and

clumsy. By the time he reached the bank he was trembling, teeth chattering. But alive.

Water. And shelter. Before he froze. He took out his arrows and filled his quiver with river water. As he did, he saw two of the pursuing dragons soar overhead, side by side, black shapes against the night sky. Kemir winced and ducked. Once they were gone, he jogged along the bank to where a fallen tree lay with its roots sticking up in the air and started to strip off his wet clothes. There was a scar in the ground where the earth had been ripped open by the tree's roots as it fell. He tried to ignore how tired he was, fobbing off the fatigue and the exhaustion with promises that they could have him later. As long as they let him do what he needed to do to stay alive.

He threw the last of his clothes onto the ground. He was shivering uncontrollably now. Memories of Nadira kept bothering him, although whether that was because he needed someone else's warmth or because he might be seeing her again soon, he wasn't sure. He started shovelling pine needles into a mound, scrabbling for handfuls wherever he could find them. She could have helped him with this too.

He ran out of strength long before his pile of needles was as big as he wanted it to be. More would have been better, but there was nothing for it. He tipped some into the hole, climbed in and pulled the rest on top.

'Forest blanket,' he whispered to himself. 'Have you never tried it?' His teeth were chattering. As the lurking darkness took him, he could almost believe he wasn't alone any more. And then he was gone.

He was awoken by snuffling. Warm, loud snuffling. I know you are here. I can feel your thoughts.

He opened his eyes. It was still dark. A dragon was peering at him. A huge dragon. He couldn't see what colour it was, but he was fairly sure it wasn't white.

'Snow?'

In the times we were first born this one had a different name. Now he is called Sunset.

Kemir didn't move, He couldn't. Overnight, his muscles all seemed to have turned to wood. His face ached and his nose was sore and swollen up like and egg. 'This ... is ... another dragon?' he hissed.

I told you I would hunt them. I have brought down one. The others evade me. Something landed with a thud close to Kemir's head. This is the rider. I could not tell if he was poisoned so I did not eat him. He has warm dry clothes. There is food here too.

Food. Kemir jumped out of his hole. He skirted nervously around the new dragon, but Sunset only sniffed its dead rider and then eyed Kemir with dull curiosity. Both dragons were deliciously warm. After a moment of hesitation, he started to relieve the dead man of his clothes and his armour. The clothes were still warm too. Then he looked at Sunset.

He will not hurt you. There is food. You wish to eat. You must take what you can. More dragons are coming. We must be on our way to the sea.

Kemir helped himself. The food was delicious. He felt new again.

You may ride Sunset if you wish. He is far from awakening.

'No thanks.' He climbed up into the saddle and kicked Snow in the neck. 'Come on then! Gee up! How many dragons are after us now?'

Two remain. They will not catch us.

With food and water the rest of the journey wasn't so bad. Snow flew straight; the other dragon flew behind her and the riders from the mountains kept their distance. Sometimes when Kemir looked back he couldn't even see them. Then, hours later, they'd be back, little dark specks against the high white haze of cloud. They never came close though, and after another day and night of drifting high over the edge of the mountains, the Worldspine came to an end. A very abrupt end, as though the ancient god who'd carved the landscape had simply stopped and cut the rest away with a divine knife. Sheer cliffs plunged into the Sea of Storms, and when Kemir looked to the east, to the depths of the mountains, he saw that the cliffs only grew higher, until they rose from the sea for miles and vanished into the heavy clouds above. As Snow flew out into the void between the grey and grumbling clouds and the churning waters below, the last two dragons ended the pursuit.

They stopped at the cliff and perched on the rocks. Kemir watched them fade slowly into the haze of the day. We have won, Kemir.

Kemir closed his eyes as they flew out to sea. The coast was barely visible. Snow climbed up into the clouds, and Kemir couldn't see anything any more. The air was bitterly cold but at least it was damp. He opened his mouth and wished it would rain. The water he'd taken from the river was already gone.

'Where are you going?' Snow was turning back towards the coast.

Do you not wish to rest, Kemir? To eat and drin\ at your leisure? To lie with your limbs outstretched? 'You bloody know I do.'

So do I. She powered in through the cloud. Kemir yawned. If the dragon wanted to go back to the coast and land somewhere safe, that was fine. He slumped over Snow's shoulders and let his mind wander through the memories that had brought him here. He thought of Sollos and of the dragons that had burned his home. Of Snow burning the alchemists out of their caves. Of Nadira. Of Rider Semian, whose sword had ended Sollos. Of his own shrieks of rage. Of sitting astride Snow as she hurtled through the air. He dreamed of the wind in his face, a great, howling wind ...

They were falling out of the sky. He blinked awake and tried to move, and the wind almost ripped him out of his harness. Snow had tucked in her wings. She was falling straight down like a monstrous arrow from the heavens, and Sunset was beside her. The black stone landscape of the cliffs was rushing up towards him. Kemir opened his mouth to shout, to scream, anything, but the wind tore his breath away. He couldn't even breathe.

hook.

He could barely open his eyes, but now at least he had a proper dragon-rider's helm. He pulled down the visor and looked. The two dragons who'd followed them to the sea were still there and Snow was diving at them.

Breathe! He forced his chest to motion. Breathe! 'What are you doing?'

These ones will be slow and stupid just as you have become, and I am hungry. I do not think there is nuuh food in this sea.

'There are fish.'

I do not think I am well equipped for catching fish.

The ground was coming up. Kemir clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, and then Snow spread out her wings and threw Kemir forward with such force that he hit his head on her scales and knocked himself out. When he came to, Snow had landed. Kemir touched his forehead. His fingers came away bloody. His face was agony. His nose was probably ruined forever.

You knew what I meant to do, chided Snow. You should have been ready.

'I was ready.'

Obviously not ready enough. She had a dragon-rider in her mouth. As Kemir pulled his groggy thoughts together, she crunched on the knight and swallowed him in one gulp, armour and all.

'Stupid dragon, impatient as ever. He was probably poisoned, you know.' He could hear whimpering and wailing from somewhere.

No, he was not. I asked before I ate him.

'How very civilised. And what makes you think that whatever he told you was the truth?' Definitely whimpering. Someone was still alive, begging for mercy. Kemir peered down, trying to see the ground below Snow's bulk.

He did not tell me anything with his words, Kemir, except how terrified he was. But I saw in his mind. No secret joy, no hidden victory. Only the understanding of certain death and his own futility. He had not taken poison like the ones before. Snow licked her lips. Bitter. I prefer them better fed.

'I'm sure the others will taste better.' Two dragons meant four riders, didn't it? His head was throbbing badly. And his nose. Most of him, in fact.

I barely noticed. These dragons carry food and water too. You should take it.

'Do I have to?' He didn't feel so hungry now, only sleepy.

There will be no more for many days. I will take your guidance, Kemir. I must wait for these dragons to awaken, and so we will fly out over the sea where none of your kind will find us. They will look for us but they will find nothing. We will seek land again far away from here. Until then we will starve.

'Great.' The effort of getting off Snow's back and rummaging around the other dragons for food seemed impossible. Snow might as well have asked him to scale the cliffs.

It is fortunate that I fed so well before this chase began, Kemir, is it not?

'Whatever.' Wearily, Kemir unstrapped himself. He put his hand to his head again. The wound was still bleeding, and he had a lump the size of an egg right between his eyes. 'What do you make your scales out of?'

Whatever we eat, Kemir.

He turned around to slide off Snow's shoulder and staggered as he landed, dizzy and close to collapse. If he was really lucky, one of the dragons would catch him with an idle swish of its tail, shatter every bone in his body and send him flying over the edge of the cliff. Where the sea would then smash what was left of him into a sticky mess to be slowly eaten by crabs.

He sat down heavily and rubbed his head again.

'I hate you,' he grumbled. Then he saw that Snow had a last rider trapped under her front claw. Still alive.

Take the food and water, Kemir. Eat, drink and sleep.

Kemir glanced at the trapped rider. 'What about that one?'

We are bringing this one with us. This one is useful.

'Useful?' Kemir moved closer. 'How?' He stopped. The dragon-rider had lost his helm. Her helm. Long hair straggled out between Snow's claws. He caught a glimpse of her face. Terrified.

This one knows where other dragons may be found.

Kemir blinked. The dragon-rider's eyes caught his. Pleading. He'd seen that look too many times before. It made him hate her.

'Give her to me and I'll make her talk right enough. Then I can tell you everything you need. You can have her back when I'm done if you must.' As Snow lifted her claw, he stepped forward, pulled the dragon-rider to her feet and threw her down again. Hard. Then he was on her. He punched her several times in the face, bloodied his knuckles, but somehow that wasn't anywhere near enough; he started ripping off her armour, tearing at the clothes underneath, swearing and screaming at her while Snow watched over his shoulder. The dragon-rider didn't even fight back that much. She snuggled, but most of her whimpers were pain. Snow had already broken one of her legs, maybe done more. He had her armour mostly off, was all ready to tear open the soft flying shirt she wore underneath when the dragon stopped him dead.

Why?

'What?'

Why, Kemir?

Revenge, that was why. Revenge for all the men and women raped and enslaved by the mountain king's riders. It wasn't about lust or desire or need, just cold and bloody and vicious revenge. Mostly what he wanted was to rip her to pieces with his bare hands. Not for anything he knew she'd done, but simply for what she was.

You see, Kemir. Do you see now? That your kind are all the same? That there are no differences between you.

Kemir spun around to glare at Snow. 'Yes, there are! These riders come and—' He wasn't allowed to finish.

A human is a human. Some are taller, some are shorter, some are darker, some are lighter, but on the inside do not tell me you are different. This one is useful. When this one has told us what it knows, it will no longer be useful. Then you may mate with her in any way you wish; but for now you will stop. For now you will leave this one alone. Eat. Drink. And then we will leave.

Angrily, Kemir did as he was told. When he was done, Snow gently gripped the rider in her claws and took to the air again, and the other dragons followed. It was true that Kemir felt a lot better for having some bread and water inside him. He had no idea where they were going and his head and his nose still hurt like buggery. But they were alive. The King of the Crags had come after them and they'd bloodied his nose too. Nine riders dead, one rider and three dragons taken. That was a start, wasn't it?

He closed his eyes. He tried not to think about the town Snow had burned. He tried not to think about the people who had lived there: the men who had simply wanted to feed their families, the women who only wanted to see their sons grow into men, the children who—

The children who might have one day grown to be alchemists, poisoning my kind with their potions? The women who bear dragon-rider sons? The men who build their castles and forge their swords and harvest their food? Do not say they have done nothing, Kemir.

They sheltered under the wings of the dragon-lords and in turn the dragon-lords stood on their backs. Perhaps that ought to have been enough. Perhaps Snow was right. Or perhaps not. Perhaps Snow was wrong and they really had done nothing. Either way, Nadira was not one of them. You shouldn't have eaten her.

And you should not have tried to force yourself on this female, Kemir, yet you did. Why? Because it is the essential naturt of your kjnd, that is why. You are what you are and so am I.

The dragon-rider. He'd almost forgotten that he'd tried to rape her. Would have raped her if Snow hadn't stopped him. Vaguely he knew that it would have been wrong. Sollos would have stopped him too. But somehow he couldn't find any feelings of regret. No remorse. Not much of anything. When the dragons had finished with her, he'd probably settle for killing her. That would do. Would probably be a mercy by then.

Wasn't that what Snow had said about Nadira? That she wanted to die?

Do you know how many dragons fly at the command of King Valmeyan, Kemir? I know that you do not, but I see the answer in the thoughts of this rider. Four hundred and then more, Kemir. Knowledge that is useful. We have taken but three today. Do not waste your thoughts on that which you cannot change. Dwell on that which you can. Think on that, Kemir. Three is a beginning, nothing more.

We. She had said 'we' again. Kemir tried to think about the town, about Nadira, but the memories kept sliding away. He looked left and right at the three dragons flying alongside Snow, one a mustard yellow, another a sooty grey who reminded him of a dragon he'd seen somewhere before, and Sunset, a gleaming ruddy brown. Yes, it was a beginning. A beginning of what, though?

As he wondered, unease settled deep into his bones. Am I becoming like her? Or was I always this way?

 

 

35

 

The Heart and the Head

 

 

Jehal leaned into his walking staff. At least he could walk now, even if one of his legs was still next to useless and every step made him wince. Jeiros wanted him back in bed, numb with Dreamleaf, but Jehal had had enough of both. He hauled himself out of the Tower of Dusk and found no guards on the doors to stop him. No Adamantine Men in sight at all except for a few up on the walls. He stopped at the doors, half afraid to step out into the Gateyard. The sunlight was overwhelming. So bright.

This won't do. He forced himself out into the light. Someone finally noticed him. They ran away. Presumably off to tell someone else. Maybe I'm still a prisoner after all. Well I might as well stay here and see who comes. I'm hardly about to run off anywhere.

He wasn't disappointed. After he'd sat in the sun for ten minutes, idly watching the men on the walls, the Night Watchman himself strode into the Gateyard. He looked haggard and a lot older than a few weeks ago. He stopped in front of Jehal and bowed.

'Forgive me if I don't rise, Night Watchman.' Jehal smiled as pleasantly as he could bear. 'I seem to be inconvenienced in that respect.'

'I wish you a full and speedy recovery, Your Highness.' Vale's face was as flat and unreadable as it always was.

'I'm sure you do. You know what? I think I might get up anyway. I think I might like to take in the view from the Gatehouse.' And why did I say that? Now I have to walk across a quarter of the palace and climb more than a hundred steps, which I'm clearly not capable of doing.

Vale offered his hand. Jehal waved it away and struggled to his feet on his own. The Night Watchman's face didn't change. 'If you like, I can put one of my men at your disposal to help you.'

Bastard. 'No, thank you, Night Watchman. It is not as bad as it seems.' And now I have to get to the Gatehouse all on my own. Still, it is going to be worth it.

Vale gave a deferential shrug. 'I am inclined to applaud, Your Highness. It is wise to exercise an injury as soon as it is ready.'

'I do not require your applause, Night Watchman. If you wish to help in that regard, you can send some of your very fine whores to my bed.'

'Ah, that I could, but Speaker Zafir has commented more than once that overexertion may simply mean you take longer to heal, Your Highness. In that particular regard, I have heard rumour that Prince Tichane is looking after your interests and doing so very well. I won't pretend to understand what that is supposed to mean.'

'Really?' Vishmir's cock you don't. But you don't know that I'm watching her. You don't know about my little mechanical dragons. In fact there's rather a lot you don't know ...

Vale gave a nonchalant shrug. 'Perhaps that means he will be supplying ladies to your bed when you are well enough to enjoy them.' He smiled faintly. 'Or perhaps you used to have some whore and now he's looking after her for you. Such things are hardly my concern so I give them no thought.'

Jehal fumed. 'Night Watchman, if I ordered you to be still so I could hobble over and break your nose, I suppose you'd comply without hesitation?'

'My nose is of little value to the realms and has been broken many times before. Consider it yours.'

'Then I shall treasure it like a gem.' And cut it off one day. 'If I'm a prisoner, I shall simply return to my tower. I wouldn't wish to embarrass you.' His eyes narrowed and he watched the Night Watchman carefully. Tra sure I seem harmless enough, but you never know quite what might happen if you allow one of your prisoners to roam. I might roam to your brothel and overexert myself or something equally terrible. Who knows — I might push someone off a balcony.'

The smallest flicker of a shadow crossed Vale's face. That was enough. Inside, Jehal smiled.

Vale turned away. 'The speaker has not withdrawn her order regarding your confinement, but she has since ordered Jeiros and the alchemists to care for you as best they can. We shall call this exercise a part of your rehabilitation. I shall escort you myself.'

'Very kind of you.' Jehal found he couldn't resist. 'But are you sure you can spare the time? You look like you've just got out of bed.'

'I apologise if my appearance troubles you, Your Highness.' They began to walk towards the Gatehouse. 'The tension in the realms has grown a great deal of late. I have been busy.'

Walking across the Gateyard and climbing the steps to the top of the Gatehouse ought to have taken a few minutes. By the time Jehal got there, he'd spent the hardest half-hour he could remember. He was soaked in sweat, his leg was in silent shrieking agony and he was ready to collapse. The Night Watchman didn't say a word, didn't offer to help. It was almost as though he understood the necessity of what Jehal was doing.

He smelled Shezira before he saw her. The cages where she and Valgar hung were not far from the gates, suspended from huge poles. There wasn't much left of either of them but it was a warm day and the wind wasn't in the mood to spare Jehal's nose. By the time he reached the top, he was ready to retch. He made himself stand and stare at them both anyway. Somehow he found it satisfying. In a sort of I'm-alive-and-you're-not kind of way.

There was a third cage too. The man inside was ... Ancestors! He's still alive. Barely. 'I see you've strung up another one. What did this one do?'

Vale pursed his lips. 'Hasn't Jeiros told you? That's Prince Sakabian. He lost twenty-five of the speaker's dragons to the traitor queen and had the audacity to survive. Then he was witless enough to return with his tale.'

Jehal's lip curled. 'Zafir would prefer he'd died or never returned, and her twenty-five dragons had simply disappeared into the mountains without a trace, would she?' Twenty-five! What a blow! She must be desperate! He tried to hide his glee. Desperate was good. Desperate was very good. 'And Almiri did that? Good for her. If a bit stupid. Let me guess, she's demanding a trade. The dragons Zafir seized on the Night of the Knives for the ones Almiri now holds at Evenspire.'

'I wouldn't know.' Vale's brow furrowed. 'Why did you come up here, Prince Jehal?' He seemed genuinely surprised, even a little pitying. You're slipping, Vale. At least now I know how things stand.

'You think I'm going to be out there in a cage of my own soon, do you?'

'I cannot read the speaker's mind, Your Highness. I simply obey the orders I am given.' Oh but you want me out there, don't you? Just like you wanted Shezira out there. You're going to be in for such a disappointment.

'Actually, I didn't much want to come here. I wanted you to come here. I wanted to watch you here, seeing this. That's why I came up here.' Yes. Such a disappointment. And now the fun starts.

'I see this every day, Your Highness.'

'And you'll see it every day for weeks to come and I'm sure there will be more. But from tomorrow you'll see it in a different light. I know why you wanted Shezira dead. I know you let her go to Hyram to try and make some sort of peace with him when you should have confined her to her tower.'

Vale didn't flinch. 'Shezira had already gone to Speaker Hyram when my men reached her tower.'

Jehal cocked his head. 'That is a lie, Night Watchman.'

'That is the truth, Your Highness. The lie comes from whoever told you otherwise.'

'No.' Jehal laughed. 'No one told me otherwise, Night Watchmen. I saw it for myself.'

Vale's turn to laugh. 'You could not, Prince Jehal. You were far across the palace in the Tower of Air. You could not have seen what you claim from there.'

'Is that so?' Jehal's grin spread across his face. 'I'm afraid you are much mistaken, Night Watchmen. I had eyes all over the palace that night and not all were men. I came up here because I have something to show you.' Slowly, he unwrapped a strip of white silk from around his wrist. 'I know you can keep a secret, Night Watchman. This is a treasure that the Taiytakei gave to me for my wedding, and that I, in turn, gave to the speaker as a sign of my devotion and my trust.'

He held out the silk. Vale looked at it, obviously puzzled. 'Forgive me. Prince Jehal, but I don't understand. What are you showing me?'

'A piece of silk, Night Watchman. Tie it across your eyes. I would sit down first, if I were you. Disorientation is a common first experience.' He watched Vale hesitate. 'I'm hardly in a position to run away.'

The Night Watchman laughed. 'Run away? Prince Jehal, I wouldn't put it past you. I'm more concerned at receiving a knife in my ribs.'

'I'm not really a knife person, Night Watchman. When I have an enemy to deal with, I prefer to watch them build their own pyre and then linger powerless on top of it for a while while I play carelessly with matches beneath.' He gave Vale a toothy smile. 'Put it on. You'll see through the eyes of... of something else. I will not tell you what.'

Slowly, the Night Watchman put the silk to his eyes, although he held it with his hands and didn't tie it. He didn't wobble or stagger either. Impressed? I suppose I have to be.

'What do you see?'

'An eyrie.' Vale took the cloth away from his eyes. 'Drotan's Top. From the top of Hyram's Tor.'

'Yes, you did. And on the Night of the Knives when I put that silk to my eyes, do you know what I saw? I saw you, Night Watchman. I saw you let Shezira go when you should have seized her.'

Vale paled. A crac\ in your armour at last.

'Yes, Night Watchman, I really did see it all. You let Shezira go.'

'It was for the good of the realms.' His voice had gone husky.

'Didn't really work out that way, did it? Do you want to know something else? It might make you feel a bit better. After all, this is Zafir's toy not mine. I'm imagining she saw everything too.'

'She never said ...'

'She never said anything about you disobeying her direct order? It did all turn out rather nicely in her favour.' Jehal shrugged. 'Mind you, letting Shezira go was clear disobedience and I think we both know that our speaker doesn't take too well to being disobeyed. Maybe she wasn't watching after all. I'll ask her, if you like.' He cocked his head in mock surprise. 'How interesting that might be. Tell me, Night Watchman: did every single witness among your men die that night ?'

'No, Prince Jehal, they did not. I do not waste my own men. They are posted where they will do no harm.' Vale sounded like he was chewing on gravel.

'Good for you.' Jehal smiled. 'Now shall I tell you something else?' He nodded over the wall towards the cages. 'I saw Hyram go over the balcony with the same eyes that saw you betray your speaker. Shezira never touched him. You beheaded an innocent queen.'

'I followed the speaker's orders.'

'You should really make up your mind, Night Watchman. Are you a guardian of the realms with a sacred duty to preserve our peace and our way of life? Or are you a man who does as he's told, no matter what fool gives him his orders?'Jehal snorted. 'But no, we both know you can't even do that right, can you?'

Vale's face didn't change. 'Should I tell Master Jeiros about the blood-mage who comes to see you, Your Highness? It would probably be wise to consider his advice.'

Jehal shrugged. 'Why not tell the speaker as well?'

'I imagine she already knows.' He shrugged. 'We are the Adamantine Men, Your Highness. We trace our traditions to the earliest days of the Embers. We were the first to rise up against the blood-mages because we had nothing to lose. We were their fodder, their unwilling sacrifices to the dragons. The Embers of today may choose their way, but the first Adamantine Men did not. The alchemists guard the realms against the dragons now. The dragon-kings guard against the alchemists, the speaker guards against the dragon-kings and we guard against them all. We are the last resort, Your Highness. We guard against tyranny. It is a precarious balance at best. People like you are anathema to me. Tell the speaker whatever you wish.'

Jehal stared at Vale as he finished. 'You actually believe that, don't you?' He hauled himself painfully to his feet. The Tower of Dusk felt a very long way away, but at least the stairs from the gatehouse would be easier going down. 'I think I would like to go back to my prison now. You can go first. Make sure you're ready to catch me. I wouldn't want to accidentally slip and break my neck. Oh, and I think, on reflection, I shall go elsewhere for my whores. No offence, Night Watchman, but I would prefer to be a little more certain of their qualities.'

Vale went wordlessly down. Jehal sat on the top step and slid down from one to the next. Which hurt and made him look like an idiot, but he simply didn't have the strength to do anything else. At the bottom the Night Watchman walked away and Jehal watched him go.

First blood was to you, Vale Tassan. But now you see what is coming and I promise all the other victories will be mine. Every single petty little one of them, until tormenting you is simply a bore.

First things first, though. He would see if this blood-mage could deliver on his promises. And after that there was the little matter of heirs and whether he could still father them. Or at least enjoy trying.

 

 

36

 

The Islands

 

 

The dragons flew for three more days, out across the sea, until they found land again. Kemir had no idea where they were but he'd never been so happy to see a bare stretch of sand in his life. He lay flat on his back, stretching muscles that he hadn't known he had.

We are hungry, Snow said. She dropped the half-dead dragon rider a hundred yards down the beach. Then the dragons took off again. The wind of their wings blasted sand into Kemir's face but he didn't notice because by then he was already asleep.

He woke up as the sun was sinking towards the horizon. Stiff as a board again. With creaking joints, he got to his feet. He had no idea where he was. With Sollos, he'd travelled most of the realms. They'd been to the edge of the stone desert to the north of Outwatch. They'd travelled on the backs of dragons over the endless dunes of the Desert of Sand and the white flat lifeless expanse of the Desert of Salt. They'd whored and fought their way through the hills around Evenspire and the swamps and moors of the distant east. They'd travelled the length of the Worldspine from north to south.

But I never crossed the sea. He sat up and looked at the sky, blue and clear. Waves rustled softly at the edge of the sand, swishing back and forth. A gentle breeze blew, soft and warm. A hundred feet the other way, away from the sea, the sand rose up into rolling humps. Dunes covered in long spiky grasses. Beyond that, trees. Lots and lots of trees.

Trees meant game and game meant food. It would be dark soon and he was hungry. The dragons had been gone for hours. He picked up his two bows and went over to the dragon-rider. She hadn't moved. She was conscious though. Could have killed him in his sleep if she'd had the presence of mind to get up and do it. Except when he peered Closer he wasn't sure she had the presence of anything much any more. Her eyes rolled up into her head. She moaned and groaned and had no idea who he was. Probably had no idea who she herself was either. By the looks of her, she wasn't going to last for long. Not so useful after all.

There was a little stream running down the beach. Kemir followed it a little way inland and found a pool. He drank and then brought back some water and tipped it down her throat. Strange thing to do to someone you planned to kill. He mulled over doing just that, slitting her throat here and now while the dragons were away. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to do that because she was a dragon-rider, or whether it was some sort of daft jealousy. In the end he put the thought away. Instead he did his best to make her comfortable and fed her some more water.

'Sorry,' he whispered in her ear. Sorry for what he wasn't sure. For all sorts of things, probably. For what he'd done, for what had happened. For what would happen later.

Then he looked out to sea and his mouth fell open. The dragons were there, maybe a mile out. They were easy enough to spot. And they weren't alone. He watched as one of them seemed to drag something through the waves towards the beach, flapping its wings furiously, almost but not quite lifting whatever it was out of the water. After a few seconds, the dragon let go and shot up into the air, only for another to take its place. Kemir watched as they came closer.

It had to be another dragon. Maybe one that was hurt. One with a broken wing. Although if it was, they were being none too gentle with it.

I don't see any wings. Don't they put down dragons with broken wings? But what else can it be? A sea monster? Whatever it was, it was black and bulky and about the size of a small hunting dragon although with no wings and without the long tail or neck of a true dragon.

The dragons were getting closer. As they saw him, Snow tipped her wings in greeting. Food! Food, Kemir! We have brought food! Giant fish!

Kemir's jaw dropped. It was whale. They had a whale.

The dragons splashed and floundered in the water, dragging the whale up onto the beach. Great gouges had already been ripped from its flesh, and yet it wasn't quite dead. Kemir kept well away as the dragons finished it off and then tore it to pieces. They'd all been days without food. The sight of it made him him both hungry and sick at the same time.

He walked back to the pool and washed himself. When he returned, the dragons were sprawled in the sand. One of them belched. Half the whale was gone.

'I see you left some for me.' He wrinkled his nose. The air stank.

We will stay here now, Kemir. There is enough to eat.

'You've only got half a whale left. You'll be hungry again in the morning.'

This will satisfy us for days if we do not fly. If we grow hungry, we shall simply hunt more. In all my many lives, I have never seen the sea with my own eyes. It is not so bad after all.

Kemir nodded. The stench was getting worse, strong enough to make him gag. 'You enjoy yourselves then. I'll go hunt something more my size.'

I feel your hunger, Kemir. You may take from our kill.

'I'm honoured.' He wasn't sure that he particularly wanted to, but an offer to share food was a meaningful thing among outsiders and to refuse was often an insult. Maybe dragons were different. Or maybe not. 'Right then. Honoured then. Like I said.' Disgusted as well, but not disgusted enough to offend something that could squash him flat without really noticing. With a sigh, he drew out one of his knives and tried to work out how best to approach the whale. Most of its head was missing, so it was a choice between its tail and its belly, where it had been ripped open and its innards scattered across the sand.

'Tail,' he decided. 'When it comes to whales, we humans like the tail bits best.' Especially when it's the part that's furthest away from all that ... mess. He held his breath. He'd hunted and killed and eaten animals all his life, but never one whose corpse he could actually walk inside.

Snow was laughing at him. You have never even seen these creatures before. You have barely heard of them.

Kemir glared at her. 'Tail is still the best.' He started to cut off strips of meat, trying to hold his nose at the same time.

Take as muck as you wish, [fier this, you will have to hunt for your-self, You cannot stay with us. For a time, at least, we must be apart.

'What?' He stopped, frozen still. 'Why? Where are you going?' The thought of being left alone out here scared him. Which was insane. He pinched himself. Nadira. Remember Nadira.

You must leave us here. We must be alone. Already my new brothers are beginning to dream, Kemir. I have shown you those dreams. You have seen what they are and you have tasted how they feel to us. You should not be here when the awakening begins. Remember Ash.

'Ash was deranged.'

Ash was angry. All of us are angry. When I awoke, I was angry. And you do not want to be near when we are angry. I cannot promise they will not eat you. I cannot promise that I could stop them.

Kemir snorted. 'Just tell them how useful I am.'

When the awakening has finished, I will reason with them. As I reasoned with Ash. Ash did not eat you, Kemir. Despite his anger.

'Well then, fine. I'll just piss off into the middle of nowhere. On my own. Leave you to it. Have fun and just see how far you get without me. Am I supposed to take your pet dragon-rider with me and look after her for you?' He looked at Snow long and hard. She was still changing. Still remembering. Still learning who she was. There hadn't been much time to notice since ... since Nadira. Not until they'd reached the sea. But she was. She wasn't the same Snow who'd burned the alchemists' redoubt, not the same dragon who'd eaten Nadira or destroyed a city whose name she didn't even know. Maybe she really didn't need him any more. He wasn't sure whether that was good or bad. 'There's one thing I want to know before I go. What's your name, dragon?'

Snow, Kemir. It is Snow. Why do you ask when you know this?

'Not that name. Your real name. The name you were given when you were born for the very first time.'

For a moment he could almost believe Snow was smiling. My hatching name. The name my silver rider gave me. The first name I ever had. Is that what you want?

'Yes. Your first name or your real name or whatever it is. Not Snow. Not the one the Outwatch alchemists gave you. Unless it's some secret and you're going to have to eat me if you tell me.'

It is no secret. I was called Alimar Ishtan vei Atheriel — Beloved Memory of a Lover Distant and Lost.'

Kemir stared at her and tried not to laugh. 'Beloved. That's ...

That's not a name I would have ever guessed. Alimar is better. Alim, maybe. Ali.'

You may know my true name, but you have not earned the right to speak    Take whatever meat you wish. And then you must go.

Kemir threw a glance down the beach at the dragon-rider, still lying in the sand. 'Fine with me. So what about her?'

Snow moved over to the prone figure on the sand. She nudged the rider with her nose. Kemir felt her disgust. This one is broken. Gingerly she picked the rider up by one leg and shook, then dropped her again. This one will be gone before my kjn awake. She will stay. I will take what I can while she lingers.

For a moment, Kemir hesitated. Maybe he should have killed the dragon-rider after all. Maybe it would have been a mercy. Then he turned. 'All yours then. Farewell, dragon.' He didn't look back.

When it is safe, I will find you.

'Only if I want you to, dragon. Only if I want you to.' With that he stalked away into the foreign trees of a forest whose name he'd never hear. Alone. Snow had company now. Her own kind. They didn't need him any more.

'Forget them,' he snapped to himself, as if that would be enough. 'They don't need you and you don't need them.' Although, all things considered, it would have been nice to have been abandoned somewhere that he knew. Or even somewhere that had people.

Still, alive was alive. Alive was something other than dead. And Snow hadn't eaten him after all. He walked as far away from the dragons as he could be bothered to and built himself a shelter. He could never walk far enough, of course, not when they had wings. Over the next days he saw them sometimes, flying in the distance. He tried to ignore them, but as the days stretched to weeks he couldn't. Food was plentiful, the hunting easy. He started to grow fat with waiting. He gave up his first shelter and took to roaming the island, exploring as much as anything for something to do. Sometimes even that wasn't enough. Sometimes he stared at the skies for hours and hours, just hoping to catch a glimpse of wings and fire.

He'd been there for three weeks when he saw the ships. He was on the far side, as far away from the dragons as he could get, and all of sudden he woke up in the morning and found the sea full of ships. They were far awav, too far for him to signal, so he watched and wondered who they were. The dragons must have seen the ships too. He saw them later that morning, flying out across the sea. The sight made him glad that he was on land. Dragons and ships didn't mix. Even he knew that. He didn't see what happened and didn't much care.

The next morning, though, they were waiting for him when he woke up. All four of them. He should have known better than to think he could hide. He found himself looking for the dragon-rider, but she wasn't there.

This one? The other three dragons looked different now. Full-grown war-dragons, they dwarfed even Snow, and they were awake too. He could see it in them.

This one is useful to us. Snow turned her attention to Kemir. We are four now. We are strong. We will return to free our kind, and you will help us.

'And how can I possibly help a dragon?'

Snow dropped something at his feet. A pack. The dragon-rider's pack. Ripped pages and maps spilled out. The realms. No one had ever bothered teaching him to read or write, but he knew a map when he saw one. With the desert up in the north, the moors to the east, the Worldspine to the west ...

They are ... they are too small. And too fragile. You will hold them and you will look at them and we will see through your eyes. He was suddenly aware of Snow, fiercely attentive to his thoughts. At the same time he saw the little crosses marked on the Worldspine in a separate hand, and realised what they were. A map of the Mountain King's eyries.

It shows where dragons can be found, does it not?

Kemir didn't answer. He didn't need to. His thoughts had already given him away. He could feel Snow in his head, glittering with greed. A map of the Mountain King's eyries. Yes. He could almost see them burn, one by one.

He didn't bother asking what had happened to the rider they'd carried across the sea with them. 'I could stay here and you could struggle away on your own.' But even as he said it, Kemir knew he wouldn't. He couldn't live on his own, not in this wilderness. Not for ever. He'd go mad. And besides ... Valmeyan ...

You will help us, Kemir.

'And if I don't?' Why am I even asking? I can finally do what Sollos and I once swore to do. I can make the King of the Crags pay. I can make him burn. The feeling was delicious and hot.

The dragon didn't answer, just licked her lips. We shall leave now. We are ready. Her thoughts were excited, but there was something else. Something out of place. Uneasy. She was almost...